Secret Agents
by Pogo KW
Summary: Alternate Universe story set after the war is over. Rachel and Marco are secret agents on a mission, just working together, right? Maybe. Maybe not! It starts a little slow, but it gets better, I promise! Please read and review!
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER:**

The Animorphs were created by KA Applegate. They are not mine. I got the idea for this story from several other fan fics. They are: The Reunion by SD, The Final Case by Weird Blondy, and Xena and the Hawk by Susan D (only the title, nothing else). I hope I didn't bother anyone by taking some ideas and mixing them with my own, but that is why I am giving them credit here.

**Author's notes and warnings:**

-This story was intended to be a romance but it seems to be turning into more of an adventure. There will be Rachel/Marco pairing, so if you don't like it, don't read it.

-This is an alternate universe, so it does not follow the ending that KAA wrote.

-If you think this story is bad, say so, but please give me some suggestions on how to improve it – simply flaming it does not help.

-There are clues to a possible relationship between Rachel and Marco in KAA's books, and I think something would have happened between them if Tobias was out of the picture. I am trying to stay in character, but remember that they are all a lot older than they were in the books, so some of the things they say and do will correspond more with adults than teens.

-I can't seem to make the thoughtspeak brackets work, so I am using dashes. -thoughtspeak example-

**Prologue**

-Marco-

Well, the war finally ended. The Andalites showed up and started frying Yeerks in space while we had a huge battle on the ground. The free Hork-Bajir did not want to get involved, so they said, but apparently someone convinced them to help Rachel kill Tom so she didn't get killed too.

All James' people were killed and Tobias was killed by a Dracon beam while flying cover. We took the ship up and starved the Yeerks of Kandrona rays while 2 of us searched for Tobias' body at all times. After a week, we just gave up. We never found the body, but a Dracon beam leaves very little of a red-tailed hawk to find.

Rachel took that one really hard. She ran away and no one saw her for a long time. I guess she managed to move on, somehow, because a year later, she was back in school, but it was obvious she wasn't the same. She was the only one (other than Tobias) who missed all the TV interviews and such.

We all finished high school and moved on. Cassie went to vet school, like she planned. Jake went into the military to train new morph-capable soldiers. Rachel went to college for a while, but I guess she didn't like it because she later joined the secret service or CIA or something doing detective work. I went to Hollywood, did lots of movies and TV shows, bought a huge mansion and basically lived the high life. Ax went home.

We sent some diplomats from Earth to the Andalite homeworld and they worked out an exchange – they would allow us to use their morphing technology and Z-space traveling technology in exchange for weekly deliveries of human DNA, Cinnamon Buns and Krispy Kremes.

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	2. A New Mission?

_-August 8__th__, 3 years after high school graduation, Animorphs are 20-21 -_

-Rachel-

I got this letter in the mail. It was from the American Government – labeled top secret. It wasn't all that unusual to get something labeled top secret, at least not for me. I've been working as a spy for the government for almost a year now. It's way better than college, in my opinion, and I get to morph for a lot of my missions. Apparently this was something different, though.

_Dear Ms. Berenson, _

_We require your services for a top secret mission in Australia. Please come to the White House banquet hall on Saturday, August 18__th__ at 7pm for briefing. If you are unable to come, please notify us immediately. _

_Sincerely, _

_Mr. President_

Wow. I hadn't gotten anything from the president in a while. I decided to go. I scheduled a flight and booked a hotel for that night. Then I left my small New York City apartment and went shopping – I wanted to get a new outfit if I was going to meet the president again.

After a few hours, my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID – it was Marco. What in the world? Why was _he_ calling me? I hadn't spoken to him or any of the other animorphs in a couple years – not even Cassie. I just couldn't handle the memories they brought up – especially of Tobias. That was why I was living in New York. There weren't any large birds of prey in the city, just pigeons and other small birds. It was easier to forget that way. Plus the shopping was amazing – tons of different stores! I could have picked any place in the US to live – the government would send me anywhere to do the jobs they wanted me to do – so I picked New York. Anyway, I picked up the phone and answered it.

"Hey Rachel! How have you been!" he said.

"OK," I responded, confused. "What have you been up to?"

"I just got this letter in the mail about a banquet at the White House and some top secret mission. Jake got one too, so I thought we all might have gotten one." He explained.

"Oh. Yeah, I got one too." I replied, "Are you going?"

"Yeah, Hollywood gets boring after a while. I was thinking it would be cool if we could all meet up before or after the briefing - you know, to catch up?" He almost sounded nervous.

"That would be nice." I answered carefully, "But I can't do before because I already scheduled my flight and it only arrives 3 hours before the dinner."

"Oh, well how about..." he tried to answer.

"After would work, though." I interrupted. I really did want to catch up with everyone – it had been quite a long time. "I didn't schedule a return flight because I didn't know when they would be sending me."

"How about breakfast the next morning, then?" he asked.

"That would be fine. Will you tell the others?" I replied.

"Sure." He said.

"You know, I didn't realize other people would be there too – I've been working alone for quite some time." I said. 

"Alone?" he said sounding surprised.

"Yeah, I'm the only morph-capable agent, so I get to do all the dirty work, so-to-speak" I said. "I'll tell you about it later, well, at least the stuff that's not classified."

"Alright." He said with a grin in his voice. "See you later Xena"

"Yeah, bye Marco."

That was such a strange conversation; I decided to call Cassie next to see what she was up to. She basically told me she had gotten the letter, but was too busy with vet school, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, and the free Hork-Bajir in Yellowstone national park that she wasn't going to go. She also said that Jake had called her and he wasn't going either.

Wait a second. If Marco had already spoken to Jake as he'd said then . . . he just tricked me into going out to breakfast with him – alone. The little weasel! I told Cassie this and she just started laughing. "That sounds like Marco, all right!" she'd said.

_-August 18__th__ 4pm-_

-Marco-

I got to the airport – Rachel had given me her flight details – and met her at the gate when she got off the plane. I carried her luggage to my limo, which was waiting outside and we went to the hotel – I'd reserved a room in the same hotel. We chatted on the way there, not about anything special, really. She was just as beautiful as ever.

"So." She asked while we were in the elevator on the way up. "When are the others getting here?"

I didn't really know what to say. The others weren't coming. Obviously she didn't know that. "I don't know" I lied. "Maybe we'll see them when we get there?"

So we went into our separate rooms, changed, and went back down to my limo to go to the White House. The others weren't there. Rachel acted surprised it was just the two of us. She glanced at me and the president started to discuss the mission – which was to start in the next week.

They suspected an organization in Australia to be similar to The Sharing! They thought the Yeerks might have come back and tried to attack the other side of the planet instead! They needed us to check it out and we were the only ones who had weapons that couldn't be taken away – our morphing powers. We were to go in as ourselves, morph something small in the bathrooms, and sneak into the "full members" meeting. Then report.

Rachel and I left to discuss it, and we decided to take the case. She wasn't too happy about it being just the two of us, but she wasn't about to turn it down – she was still Xena, after all.

At breakfast the next day, she asked me why I'd asked her to breakfast and hadn't mentioned the others wouldn't be there. I told her I just wanted to catch up. She'd been out of contact for so long, I had no idea what she was up to. She had acted like she bought my explanation, but by the look on her face, she clearly thought I was trying something else. She was right. I was trying to get her to move on, realize that she didn't have to be loyal to Tobias now because he was dead. It didn't seem to be working ... yet.


	3. Partners

-Rachel-

Marco was still flirting with me. After all this time! I guess I should show him my book. I hadn't published it yet because I couldn't come up with a title, but it was basically the story of Tobias and I. How we'd fallen in love, even while he was a hawk, how the war had brought us together and how his death had affected me. I knew I could never love again, so I never dated. It wasn't like I didn't get offers, but I couldn't just dismiss Tobias' memory like that.

I was a little worried about this mission. Unlike the other animorphs, not everyone knew my face. I hadn't done all the interviews and such – I was detained at the time – so they'd just had pictures, like they had of Tobias. But that stuff might come out of this mission too, if it turned out well. The publicity was part of the reason I didn't know if I should publish my book. Then _everyone_ would recognize me. I'd have to have bodyguards and stuff like the other animorphs. Well, first things first. The mission. This one would be the best ever, I hoped. Australia! I'd never been there before!

The mission went as planned. Marco and I sneaked in as cockroaches and listened to the plans. Yup, they were a Yeerk organization, alright. Overseen by Visser 9. And we'd thought the Yeerks were stuck back on their planet on the other side of the galaxy! So we found out what we needed to know, called in the military and the Andalites (to help from space) and took the Yeerks out. We won! What a rush! It was fun to have someone to celebrate with, even if it was only Marco.

The funniest thing happened, though. Marco and I became friends on that mission. I guess I would have considered him sort of a friend before, but we weren't really close. . I showed him my book and he read it. He told me he thought I should publish it. Marco actually came up with the title. I was thinking something along the lines of Beauty and the Beast, because the story was similar – a girl falling in love with a human trapped in the body of another species. Marco had said "How about 'Xena and the Hawk'?" I liked it.

When we got back to the States, my boss asked us if we'd be partners and continue the spy missions together. Marco said he was sick of Hollywood, so he sold his mansion and bought an apartment in New York, a few blocks from mine. We became secret agents - partners. We were famous now, after the spy mission in Australia, they asked us to do all kinds of TV shows and such. We just did a few interviews, but that was enough. Now I had those bodyguards I had been avoiding. Oh well, at least I was safe – when I was home, which wasn't often.

I decided to publish the book. More publicity came along with that, but oh well. I thought people should know my part of the story – Jake had published a book about the war, but mine was completely different. His story was more of a recap of the war. Mine was . . . a love story? More of a tragedy, I guess.

Marco and I worked together for a while, doing missions and such. We were getting really good after about a year of working together.

Missions had been slow for a little while, so I was home in New York when I got an invitation in the mail to a high school reunion. I called Marco and he'd gotten an invite too. We booked our flights and hotel together so we would have company on the trip and made plans with Cassie and Jake.

I called Cassie and made plans to go shopping before the reunion! It was just like old times - me dragging her through stores in the mall. She told me she'd broken up with her boyfriend, Ronnie. She said she still liked Jake, but assumed he'd moved on. I told her Marco had said Jake was still single, so I was determined to find her something to wear that would knock Jake's socks off!


	4. The Reunion

-5 years after high school graduation, animorphs are 22-23-

-Cassie-

I was at a high school reunion. Outside, just staring at the school. How weird to think of being that old! Oh well, time to go in. I was wearing a dress that Rachel had made me buy. She came a day early so she could hang out with me and go shopping and stuff – it was just like old times, except for the bodyguards and the fame and stuff. I had read Rachel's book – it was really good. I had a feeling a lot of people would be hoping to get her signature tonight. I hoped she could handle it.

According to the TV ads, everyone thought Rachel and Marco would make a good couple and most people saw them like that. Obviously those people hadn't read Rachel's book. She had gone to her hotel to get ready. She said she could get a cab or Marco's limo would take her to the school. He really loves to show off his money, I guess, taking the limo everywhere. They showed up together, teasing each other, just like they always had. It almost looked like something else, though. I couldn't quite place it . . . it was almost like they were closer than just friends. Probably just my imagination. Rachel would have said something during our shopping expedition, I was sure.

I walked up and gave them each a hug. Rachel told me I looked great in the new dress. Of course. She'd picked it out. I smiled. We walked in, together. Jake came over to us. He was basically staring at me. He gave me a hug and told me I looked great. I smiled, blushed and looked at the ground. Rachel rolled her eyes as if to say we were still acting like teenagers. Jake asked how Ronnie was. I had begun dating Ronnie shortly after I started vet school, but we'd broken up a long time ago. Ronnie was cheating on me. You don't stay with someone when you find that out. I was surprised Jake didn't know, so I told him.

The reunion was fun. They were playing music that was popular while we were in high school. Everyone asked us questions about being animorphs and for our autographs and stuff. Jake pretty much stayed with me the whole night. Rachel danced with pretty much everyone there – even Marco – and kept shooting Jake and I approving glances. When it was over, Jake asked if he could see me again soon. I said yes and went home with this kind of fuzzy feeling all over. I was surprised there was anything there, after all that time.

Rachel took Marco's limo back to their hotel – apparently they were staying in the same hotel. The limo returned for Marco who was still surrounded by girls and signing autographs. "Oh, brother," was all I could think, but he seemed to eat up the attention. I drove home quietly, alone. About 3 seconds after I walked in the door, the phone rang. Rachel was bombarding me with questions about Jake, just like old times. I didn't tell her anything – this was just between Jake and I – for now. She seemed disappointed.

-Rachel-

Well, the reunion was over. I thought about it as I changed my clothes in my hotel room. My hand was tired from all the autographs, but what could I do? Everyone had my book! At least I managed to get away from all the crazy fans. Marco looked like he was stuck. He was still smiling, but I could tell he was miserable when I left – all those dumb girls! He'd gotten tired of them in Hollywood, and now he was surrounded again. Hah! Glad I wasn't one of them!

Pretty soon we'd have to go back to New York and await new missions. For now, though, I was determined to get Jake and Cassie back together. Cassie wouldn't tell me anything, so I called Jake. He wouldn't tell me anything either. I paced in my room trying to decide what to do. I had far too much energy to go to bed and the pool and exercise rooms were closed – of course, it was past midnight! What could I do?

As I was considering going flying, there was a knock at the door. I peeked through the hole. Marco was standing there. At least it wasn't another one of those annoying guys who wanted to marry me. You'd think they would get the message after the one that I made sure was recorded and played on TV – I morphed grizzly and scared the crap out of him! It is hilarious to see a grown man so scared he wants to pee his pants! The thought made me grin. But Marco wasn't going to do that – he could have a long time ago and he knew how I would react. We'd laughed about the grizzly bear incident for a long time. I let him in and closed the door – don't want any weirdoes who might have gotten past security to bother us.

"What are you doing here? There were tons of girls at the reunion. I was sure at least _one_ of them would have followed you home." I smirked at him, knowing the answer already.

He sat down on one of the double beds and raised his hands in the air. "I just got them to leave me alone! I had to call the body guards to let me get in the limo and escape!" he said. He hung his head and grinned. "There are drawbacks to being so famous. . ." he winked at me "And cute and funny and ..."

I cut him off before he could continue praising himself. "Why are you here?"

"I was bored and tired of answering dumb questions." He replied. "And you didn't look too excited about going back to your room alone."

"Yeah." I agreed. "I need to do _something_! I can't just stay here! I'm far too awake to go to sleep."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Well, I can think of a few things we could do..." He stood up grinning and seductively walked toward me.

I backed up. "You and your delusions." I said rolling my eyes.

"Well, we _are_ alone together in a hotel room..." he said pointedly, trying to put an arm over my shoulder.

"Forget it!" I said throwing his arm aside. I made a quick decision. "I'm going flying. Go find some girl from the reunion to bother. There were certainly enough of them! They're probably in the lobby downstairs waiting for you."

He kind of shuddered at that thought.

I walked over and opened the window. Then I pulled off my extra clothing (down to my morphing suit) and started morphing to owl as fast as I could.

Marco watched. "Can I join you?" he asked.

-I just want to be alone.- I said, now more owl than human. Then I flew out the window.

-Marco-

She was gone – flying, supposedly. I knew where she was going. Where else? We were back where we grew up. She was going to Tobias' meadow, to mourn some more. She always did when we were here. I thought about all the girls downstairs waiting to swarm me and shuddered again. Yeah, flying would be a much better option.

I pulled off my outer clothing and morphed owl. I flew toward the front of the hotel and looked through the vaulted glass ceiling. The hotel lobby was full of people – the bodyguards were keeping them at bay, though. I knew if I followed Rachel she'd get ticked at me, so I flew to Jake's house. It was weird that both he and Cassie still lived here in California – what with all the publicity and such. Even weirder that they barely saw each other – everyone had thought they'd get married. Jake was still awake, reading a magazine or something. I fluttered a wing at his upstairs window and he let me in. I quickly demorphed.

"What's up, man?" he asked.

"Not much" I answered. "Do you want to play a video game? I bet you can't beat me."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "How much?"

"Uh, $50." I said, thinking quickly.

"Deal." he said instantly, "But I get to pick the game."

"K" I said. We set it up and started playing the game he picked. I started trying to get information about Cassie, but he kept changing the subject – to Rachel and me.

"You read the book, right?" I asked him. "She's never going to even date another guy again. She's going to be mourning Tobias until the day she dies. I have to just be happy being her friend."

"You're constantly flirting with her!" Jake said. "You think she doesn't notice?"

"Yeah...Got ya!" We were playing a shooting game and I had managed to get in a really good shot, severely wounding his player. "But I've always done that. She'd probably think something was up if I _stopped_ flirting with her."

"Ouch...Probably, but still... Oh man!" Jake sat down the controller and looked at me.

I grinned at him. "I win!"

"Best of three?" he asked.

"OK, but I get to pick the next game cuz I won . . ." I said

"What, you don't think you can still beat me if I pick the game?" Jake taunted me. Boy, it was good to be normal – no Yeerks or war or anything like that.

"Fine, fine, FINE! Pick the game!" I said trying to sound angry. "I'll _still_ kick your sorry butt."

We started a new game. We must have played until 4AM and discussed every topic under the sun. We even restarted the debates we'd had going since we were kids – Batman vs. Spiderman, if cheese can taste yellow...

I started to morph owl to go back to the hotel when I realized the window in my hotel room wasn't open. How was I going to get back in? I decided to just sleep at Jake's house. I called my limo driver and told him to pick me up at noon and then went to sleep in the guest room at Jake's house.

-Rachel-

After I left, I flew out to Tobias' meadow, where the memorial was. I talked to him. I didn't know if he could hear me or not, and a lot of people probably would have thought I was nuts if they knew, but I didn't care. I loved Tobias. The life I had now wasn't the life I'd been looking for the day before the final battle in the war. I had thought Tobias would morph human permanently and we would get married, have kids – be a normal family. I would go to his meadow and reminisce, wonder about what might have been.

I demorphed, remorphed, and flew back to my hotel to go to bed. I didn't know what Marco would be doing, so I left the window open in case he came back, put on my pajamas, and then went to bed.

The next morning, Marco still wasn't back – his clothes were in a crumpled heap on the floor. He was so messy! You'd think he could at least keep his mess in his own room! We had a flight back to New York at 3. He'd be there, but knowing him, he'd probably forget he even left clothes here, so I stuffed them into my already bulging suitcase. He'd probably be late, but he'd be there. He was always late. It bugged me and he knew it. He was probably intentionally late, just to bug me.

We met up at the airport. I asked if he'd gotten any info out of Jake and he said he hadn't. We basically flew in silence back to New York and went our separate ways from there.

Several months later, I got a wedding invitation in the mail – Jake and Cassie were getting married!

It was a lovely wedding, and they were just so right for each other! I cried during the ceremony. Marco teased me about it, of course. But we all had a good time.

They left on their honeymoon and Marco and I went back to work. We kept up the missions and stuff. It was really fulfilling to be doing spy missions all the time, and we were getting really good at solving cases!


	5. Get Married?

_-One year after the reunion, Animorphs are 23-24-_

-Rachel-

Marco and I had a place where we always met to discuss missions. It was a room in a fancy restaurant, highly guarded, so no one could overhear any classified information. I was sitting at a table, waiting for Marco, again! He was 15 minutes late. He'd been later, but still.

He finally walked in, breathing hard and grinning at me. I didn't return the smile. I glared at him. "You're late, midget." I knew that would get him. He was almost an inch taller than me now, but he was still shorter than most guys and he had always been shorter than me until just recently.

"Haven't you ever heard of being fashionably late?" He asked grinning at me. "I was detained by an entourage of beautiful women, all who pale in comparison to you, Princess."

Why did he call me Princess? I don't know. He started that a year or so ago. And all the crazy compliments – yeah, those were complete BS, as far as I was concerned. He tried to sweet-talk everyone, so it didn't faze me a bit.

"I ordered your usual." I said still glaring. "But I told them not to bring either of ours until you got here. So what's this new mission?"

"Well," he began. . . I tried to listen, but I got to daydreaming again. I started thinking about how bizarre our relationship really was. He'd been my ... friend? Kinda, I guess. You can't go through what we did and not be at least friends with everyone involved, but I was definitely not close to him.

After the war, I didn't see him for a long time, but it wasn't exactly a relationship I had really cared about keeping. Now he was really my only friend. Cassie – I hadn't seen her since her wedding. Jake? My cousin? I hadn't seen him since then either and as a secret agent, I wasn't exactly a social butterfly. I hadn't really made any new friends.

At least I wasn't so lonely now. I mean, before Marco was my partner, I really _was _alone. I should appreciate him more, I guess, but he was so full of himself, it wouldn't have been good to improve his ego. Better to take it down a notch. He _was_ cute, I guess. He'd managed to get that out of me while I was cut in half – mean Rachel never would have said that and I wouldn't have either, but nice Rachel told him. And he never let me forget it.

"Hello? Are you listening in there?" Marco said waving a hand in front of my face.

I shook my head to clear it. "What?" I asked looking at him.

"Did you hear a word I said? What could you have possibly been daydreaming about? And you asked _me_ to get down to business! Gosh!" He said in mock-anger. Then he winked at me. "This is not a good beginning to a marriage!"

I nearly choked on my coke when he said that "Marriage? Who said anything about marriage?"

"Wow, you really weren't listening, were you?" he said grinning at me. "Its our next case. We're supposed to investigate this Andalite, Ganlor-Sirbabial-Raynier." He read the name off the briefing document in front of him, stumbling over the words. "No wonder he goes by Ganlor, what is it with these hard-to-pronounce Andalite names?"

"He's the one who runs Andalite Honeymoons, right?" I asked.

(A/N: If anyone has a better name for this space cruise line, please tell me. I was at a loss as to what to call it!)

"Yeah." Marco continued. "The government thinks he's up to something, and they need us to find out what it is. The mission is to go on our honeymoon on his ship to the Andalite homeworld and check it out. We're supposed to search the ship while we're on it, then search the hotel and follow him around while we're on the Andalite homeworld. First, we have to get married. For real."

"Why?" I asked. "We've faked the documents in the past, can't we just fake them now?" I was confused. I didn't want to marry Marco. I didn't want to get married at all.

"Nope, they checked into it." Marco said shaking his head. "Has to be the real thing for a couple reasons. They have this new authenticity strip in all legal documents now – including money, ID and a bunch of other stuff, including marriage licenses. You can't book a honeymoon trip with Andalite Honeymoons without the real thing and since we're so famous, our honeymoon has to be big – a big wedding publicized and everything or it won't be believable. We can always get an annulment when we get back."

I groaned. "Sounds like a lot of work. Are they sure this Andalite guy is acting suspicious? Isn't there another way?" I was whining and Marco picked up on it.

"Well, if you're afraid, we can always see if someone else will do it..." He grinned at me, knowing that would get me.

"I'm not _afraid_, Marco." I glared at him. "Just let me think for a minute."

He went to the bathroom, while I leaned back and thought about it. Why would it be so bad to marry Marco? It's not like it would be real, we could just get an annulment when we got back, just like he said. It would be a snap. Plus, a trip to the Andalite homeworld _would _be fun... I hadn't been in space in forever and I'd seen the commercials for Andalite Honeymoons – those honeymoon ships were like mini cruise ships and they were designed for humans – it would be relaxing! Far better than usual when we had to just deal with quarters designed for Andalites.

Marco came back. "So?"

I grinned at him. "Let's do it."

He groaned.

I called Cassie that night and told her about the wedding plans. She was shocked, but agreed to being the maid of honor. I had her ask Jake to be the best man. I did all the planning and stuff – Marco didn't really care about most of it. It wasn't real, after all. To make it look real, the bride was supposed to do the planning anyway. Plus the government was paying for all of it! I managed to pull it off in a month.


	6. Flying Pigs?

-Marco-

Weird. I was going to my wedding rehearsal. Mine and Rachel's. It wasn't real, I knew, but it sure seemed like it. It had to, I guess. The rehearsal part wasn't televised, but we had to practice anyway. So there we were, practicing.

The pastor told us where to stand and what to do. He went through the ceremony and what he would say, what we would say, etc. When he said "And then you kiss," Rachel went completely pale. Her smile never wavered, but I could see it in her eyes – she hadn't thought about that part of the ceremony before just now. I hadn't really thought about it either, but it was too late to back out now.

I grinned at her. She was totally going to flip out at me and I was going to tease her to no end. This was going to be fun! We got done and met up back in the limo. She sat about as far from me as she could, almost looking like she was going to explode.

"You'd thought of this all along, hadn't you?" She managed to get out, glaring at me.

"No!" I said innocently, "I honestly hadn't thought about it until today. But it's really too late to back out now, isn't it!" I grinned. She recoiled. Oops, I'd made it worse.

"So, do you think we should practice?" I slyly suggested leaning toward her. "I mean, it's going to be on TV, so we should probably make it look real..."

She grabbed one of my hands and started bending my fingers backwards. "Ow. Ow. Ow. C'mon, stop it." I snatched my hand away and scooted away from her. I'd leave her alone for a while. Maybe she'd cool down.

We got to the hotel and went to our separate rooms. Cassie went over to Rachel's room a couple minutes later. She went inside, obviously knowing something was wrong. Good ole Cassie. She could calm Rachel down. Maybe.

-Rachel-

I didn't think Marco would have set this whole thing up just so he could pretend to marry me. I didn't think he would do that. What was I going to do? I was going to have to kiss him. On the lips. In front of a whole bunch of people. After I'd vowed never to . . . love again. Kissing and love are not the same, so I'd just have to act. I'd never been a good actress . . . There was a knock at the door. I peeked through the hole. It was Cassie. I let her in.

"Are you ok?" she asked.

"Yup, I'm fine. Couldn't be better!" I said as sarcastically as possible. "I just have to _kiss Marco_ tomorrow, that's all. No biggie."

I put a big fake grin on my face, got up and started pacing through the room, ranting about how much I didn't want to kiss him, but I had to anyway, for a mission. An important one, but still. "What am I going to do?" I paced some more. Then I had an idea, at least how to start a real conversation with Marco about this extremely uncomfortable topic.

"Do you happen to have a pig morph?" I asked

Cassie gave me the weirdest look. "No, why?"

"Can you get one?" I asked "Cuz I need you to morph a flying pig." She'd morphed a whale with wings before, so why not a pig? She still looked confused, so I explained why I needed it. Iskoort homeworld. Jake kissed her for the first time. Marco had asked if I'd kiss him and I'd told him in not so many words "when pigs fly."

"Lets go!" she said.

We morphed owls and flew out the window to find a nearby farm with pigs. She quickly acquired one and we headed back. She practiced morphing the winged pig and after a few tries, she had it down. Then she tried flying. It didn't work so well. She demorphed and tried to get her bones to remain thin like the bird's while she morphed the pig. It seemed to work and she was able to make a short flight around the room. Great.

"Now lets go see Marco." I said. She, in her winged pig morph, followed me. I knocked on the door. "Marco!"

He opened the door. "What?" he said. Then he looked down and Cassie snorted. He jumped about a mile.

Cassie flew down the hall and back while Marco gaped at her. She landed and I looked at her.

"Thanks Cassie." I said and walked into Marco's room while Cassie demorphed and joined Jake in theirs. I sat down at the desk that was in there and looked at him.

He looked at me and said "Well, I guess now that pigs fly, you can kiss me, right?" He laughed and tried to put his arms around me. I backed away. "We need to talk."

"OK." He nodded. "_Then_ we can make out, right?" He was laughing again.

I blew up, barely able to keep my voice down. "Why does everything have to be a joke? This is not funny, ok?"

He looked at me. "You honestly don't think it's funny? The girl who has basically been avoiding me since we met, whom I've been hitting on the whole time is being forced to kiss me! On television, no less! It's almost like that one episode of Family Matters where Laura had to kiss Urkel in front of the entire school. Do you remember that episode? I think it's hilarious!" he started laughing again. "I mean, at least kissing me is better than kissing _Urkel_, right?" he added noticing I hadn't even cracked a smile.

"I guess that episode was pretty funny..." I said avoiding the question. I tried to smile weakly. "Just make it quick, ok? And the garter will be right above my knee. Reach any further than that..." I left off there, he could figure out what I meant.

"Ok, ok, ok." He said giving in. "I get the point. What about the reception? Everyone will be expecting it when they hit their glasses and stuff..."

"Just make it quick." I said. "And do not smash cake in my face, ok?"

"But I thought you wanted it to look real." He whined.

"I'm sure plenty of couples don't smash cake in each other's faces, so don't smash it in mine!" I said.

"OK! Gosh!" He turned away, mocking being offended. He sat down in front of his TV and turned it on. Then he glanced at me.

I left.


	7. The Wedding!

**DISCLAIMER**: I do not own the song by Collin Raye – he wrote it. I just put the lyrics in here.

-Marco-

Rachel left me to my TV shows that evening. I just hoped she'd cool off before morning or we'd really have a hard time making it look real.

-the next day, 1pm-

I got up, showered, put on my tux and gelled my hair. By about 3, I was ready to go, standing next to Jake at the front of the church listening to the dorky music and watching people being seated. Finally, the flower girl came up and then Cassie. Then, the music changed and Rachel started to walk down the aisle. Whoa! She looked gorgeous! I mean, she always did, but this was different. I'm sure my eyes bugged out of my head – I couldn't take my eyes off her. Hopefully she'd think I was just playing the part.

We went through all the motions – the rings, candles and everything else. Then he asked us to say "I do" and said "You may kiss the bride." I looked Rachel in the eyes – she looked scared to death, even with the fake smile on her face.

I put my hand on her cheek, leaned in and kissed her. She kissed me back! Whoa! It was only a few seconds, but it was ... amazing! I'm sure I probably had a dreamy look on my face, but hopefully she'd think that was just playing the part too. She was smiling when we pulled apart. Really smiling not fake smiling. Huh? You'd almost think she _enjoyed_ that! Yeah right. I grabbed her hand and we ran down the aisle to more of that dorky music.

We waited in a room off to the side while everyone else walked down and left to go to the reception. Then they made us take a bunch of pictures and stuff. By the time we got to the limo, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much!

Rachel wouldn't look at me. She looked like she was trying hard not to cry. She cried at my Dad's wedding to Nora. I guess it was a girl thing – I didn't really see anything to cry about. Now laugh? Yeah – the fact that Rachel was not afraid of anything that I knew of, but she was scared to death of kissing me? I found _that_ to be highly amusing. I glanced at her and tried very hard to stop giggling.

-Rachel-

I couldn't look at him. I wasn't supposed to _enjoy_ kissing him! What if he did too? What if he realized I'd enjoyed kissing him? What if... I couldn't think about all the 'what ifs' right now. Right now I had to deal with the fact that in less than 10 minutes we'd be at the reception, back in the line of cameras. Ugh! I hate cameras. And Marco's sitting over there giggling for no reason. Well, maybe he had a reason.

"What's so funny?" I snapped.

"You, Xena, are not afraid of Yeerks or Hork-Bajir or death-trap battles, but you're afraid of kissing me. That's what's so funny." He grinned at me, still giggling.

Well, when you put it that way, kissing Marco _wasn't_ going to kill me or anyone I cared about. It _was_ kinda funny to be afraid of it, I guess. I started giggling too. The tension had been broken. I was relieved.

-Marco-

I got her to laugh. Good. She wasn't going to kill me. Yet. "Ready to go, Xena?" I asked when the limo stopped at the reception hall.

"Let's do it!" she said, fiercely grinning at me. We climbed out of the limo and they announced our arrival. We had dinner, the toast went well, I think. Cassie seemed a little shy about the speech, but she did fine. We had cake and I refrained from stuffing it into Rachel's face, like she'd asked.

She looked relieved when it was over. Finally, it was time for dancing. I'd danced with Rachel tons of times before. We'd taken dancing lessons so we wouldn't blow our cover when posing as husband and wife. "This part will be easy." I thought.

Rachel danced with her dad while I watched. Then just the two of us, and then everyone was all together and dancing. They started this one slow song and we were dancing to it. I wasn't really listening – it was just nice to have an excuse to be close to Rachel. She had her arms around me and we were just kind of swaying to the music.

After it was over, she almost looked like she was going to cry. She said she had to use the bathroom and then left. I had no idea what was wrong, so I walked over and got some more punch.

-Cassie-

Rachel had been listening to the song and after it was over, she looked like she was going to cry. She walked into her private bathroom, so I followed her to make sure she was ok. She wasn't – she was crying.

"Rachel, are you alright?" I asked.

"No." she said, sniffling. "That song . . . did you listen to it?"

"Yeah." The song was 'What the heart wants' by Collin Raye:

_She met him down at the laundromat_

_3AM on a washing machine they sat and talked 'til dawn_

_He bought her breakfast at a small cafe_

_That morning turned into the rest of the day_

_And then the day was gone_

_He thought that she'd surely turn away_

_No fairy tale ever started this way but ..._

_It ain't the mind that calls the shots 'round here_

_When stronger powers pull two bodies near_

_Nothin' on Earth can interfere when love is_

_What the heart wants ... _

_They made a wish on an evening star _

_From a rooftop high above the boulevard_

_Up in the twilight sky_

_He held her hand, she held her breath_

_Two lonely hearts beating scared to death _

_Of the chance to fly_

_Giving in to the arms of Fate_

_This isn't quite like the plans that they made_

_It ain't the mind that calls the shots 'round here_

_When stronger powers pull two bodies near_

_Nothin' on Earth can interfere when love is_

_What the heart wants _

I didn't know what she meant though. Was it bringing up memories of Tobias? I asked her if it was. She shook her head. Then what?

She looked at me, not sure if she should say anything.

"It hits a little too close to home." She said finally. "Our first mission, Marco had no idea how to use a washing machine in a laundromat. I had to show him." She laughed.

"He was so hopeless, but we ended up talking all night and going out to breakfast the next morning. I showed him the book I'd written, and he told me to publish it. Said that everyone would want to read it. He even came up with the title. We started doing missions together after that. We were like best friends, but now..."

"What's it like now?" I asked patiently. I was pretty sure I knew the answer – the way she and Marco were looking at one another, but I'd wait until she decided to tell me.

"It wasn't supposed to happen! I'm not allowed to fall in love again!" she blurted, then looked embarrassed.

I wasn't too surprised, but it had to be the weirdest situation for her – she was falling in love with Marco at their real/fake wedding. I'd never thought it would be possible – they were always bickering at one another, sort of, but then again, they were often on the same side of an argument when it involved all of us. Hmmmm.

"Why not?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"Tobias . . ." She said, looking down, afraid to continue.

"You've been mourning for 8 years. Don't you think he'd want you to move on?" I asked.

"_He_ wouldn't have." She said pointedly, avoiding the question.

"But you would have wanted him to, right?" I asked.

"I don't think I can talk about this right now." She answered. "I'm going back to the reception. Thanks for listening to me."

She stopped to check her makeup in the mirror, applied some more lip-gloss, and then headed out. I watched her leave, not sure if I'd done more harm than good.

-Marco-

The rest of the reception went fine, I think. Rachel went and changed her clothes, then I changed mine and we took the limo to the ship where we'd be leaving for our "honeymoon." Of course it was all televised, so when we got out of the limo, I made a quick decision. I picked Rachel up and carried her onto the ship with a big smile on my face. She couldn't do anything about it without blowing our cover. Hee hee! The cameras were gone, finally, and Rachel was glaring at me. Oops. I'd made her mad. Oh well.


	8. Amnesia

-Meanwhile, in California, near the coast ... (3RD person)-

A man was working late in a rehabilitation center for raptors and large birds. He was cleaning a cage of a red-tailed hawk with only one wing. The TV was on and the man was absent-mindedly listening to it while he worked. The coverage of the Rachel Berenson/Marco Bentle wedding was on.

A reporter came out and was showing clips of the wedding and talking about it. The one-winged hawk suddenly stared at the TV. A few seconds later, it fell off it's perch, unconscious . . .

-Tobias-

Rachel. . . Marco. . . those were names I almost recognized! I fell off my perch and memories came back to me:

_Walking home from the mall with 4 other people – 2 girls and 2 guys. _

_Cutting through an abandoned construction yard and a space ship landing! _

_Meeting the andalite, Elfangor. _

_Getting the power to morph. _

_Becoming a cat. _

_Becoming a hawk and being trapped. _

_Falling in love with Rachel. _

_Getting my morphing power back from the Ellimist. _

_Proposing to Rachel just before the last battle. _

_The last battle, flying cover, shouting out directions in thought-speak. _

_Getting hit by a dracon beam and going down, missing a wing._

I woke up. I looked at myself and my missing wing and suddenly knew who I was. I was human! I could fix my wing by morphing and fly away! Then two things occurred to me:

1) I had no idea how long I'd been here.

2) No one knew I was alive.

Rachel had married Marco! Oh my God.

She and others needed to know I was still alive. Regardless. But how would I do that? The doors were locked at night and I couldn't morph in front of people, could I? Were the Yeerks still around? I knew controllers wouldn't be saving birds, but the Yeerks might _still_ be around… I'd have to try to find out some more information before I tried to escape.


	9. The mission  part 1

-Rachel-

Marco had carried me onto the ship. He wasn't supposed to do that. I was not happy with him, but I had to pretend for a while. The Andalite, Ganlor, gave us a tour of the small ship. There were quarters for only one couple at a time – I guess to make it more private, or maybe because it was very expensive to go up in space, very few people could afford it. We had our own little kitchenette with real food (none of that nasty liquid grass the andalites eat!). There was a bathroom designed for humans with a heart-shaped spa-type bathtub and separate shower. There was a king size bed, a desk with a computer, a large walk-in closet and even carpeting on the floor. Normally we'd just had to deal with Andalite quarters but this time, we were traveling in style! I grinned at Marco when we saw the room. It was really cool. He seemed impressed too.

Ganlor went through this big speech about how he knew we had just gotten married and he wouldn't be uncomfortable if we kissed and stuff in front of him. Oh great. Now we'd have to play the part all the way to the Andalite homeworld. I had thought the Andalites wouldn't know how humans act toward each other when they just got married. Obviously since he did this all the time, he knew how humans interacted with one another. I gave Marco a nervous look. This was going to be a long trip.

We took our suitcases into the large human quarters and started to unpack. It was 3 weeks to the Andalite homeworld. I got my stuff out and went into the bathroom to shower.

Marco had turned on the computer and was playing some game while I unpacked. Obviously he wasn't going to unpack anything. He never put anything away at home, why would he do it here? He'd probably be occupied for hours. When I came out close to an hour later, he was still on the computer.

I went to bed and he went into the bathroom to shower. He usually slept on the floor when we shared a hotel room. I guess that was what he would be doing here – but it was very cold in here. I felt bad for him, but what could I do? I wasn't going to share a bed with him, right? I went to sleep and dreamed about the last battle again.

_I could see Tobias outside flying cover for the new animorphs – James' and his gang. He was yelling directions at them in thought-speak. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a dracon beam flashed and he fell out of the sky, smoking. "Nooooooooooooo!" I screamed. "Tobias!" _

I was crying and soaked in sweat when a hand touched my shoulder. "Tobias?" I asked, still half asleep.

"No." came the reply in the dark.

-Marco-

She had this dream a lot. We all had had nightmares for years after the war ended, but I had a feeling she would never quite be rid of this particular dream.

"You OK, Princess?" I asked her.

"No." she answered, turning away from me.

Of course she wasn't ok. Tobias was dead. They'd never found the body, so she had no closure. I knew how that was – the same thing had happened to my mother. She was probably still doing the same things I'd done – imagining ways he could have survived, but knowing deep inside that it wasn't really possible. I felt sorry for her, but what could I do?

I grabbed one of the pillows she wasn't using and a blanket, and made my way to the floor. She turned on the light and sat up.

"Marco." She began. "We're going to be on this ship for a really long time – close to 3 weeks! The floor must be really cold and this bed is huge, why don't you just sleep up here - on top of the covers? It would probably be at least a little warmer and more comfortable." She trailed off.

I had no idea what to say, but the idea of not sleeping on the floor was definitely appealing. The idea of sleeping with Rachel was even more so. But it seemed like it would make things awkward. Well, they couldn't really get much more awkward – we'd gotten married, even kissed. "Um, ok." I said hesitantly lying down on the bed a good distance from her. "We have officially entered the Twilight Zone. Doo-dee-doo-doo. Doo-dee-doo-doo." I thought to myself as I fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up and Rachel was already up. I guess she was in the shower – I could hear it running. I got up and turned on the computer. We had a lot of time to kill. Close to three weeks and we only had a small ship to search. We'd need to plan how to do the search – Ganlor couldn't find out we were searching his ship, so we'd have to fake it somehow. Maybe at night, or something. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and ate it while I started a computer game. I guess Rachel came out of the shower at some point and ate some cereal, but I wasn't really paying attention.

After a while, she tapped me on the shoulder. "We need to decide what to do next." We chatted about it for a while and decided that we should sneak out while Ganlor was sleeping. His small crew of two other Andalites would not be sleeping, but we were not as suspicious of them either. There were only a couple rooms that hadn't been part of the tour, so we figured we'd search one every other day. We also had to hack into the computer systems and search for classified information. That was my job.

In the meantime we killed time playing cards or she'd read magazines and I'd play computer games. We didn't find anything in any of the rooms yet. We still had to search Ganlor's quarters, though. That would be the trickiest because we couldn't be caught. It had to happen while he was distracted.

Rachel went up and started asking him questions about the ship and how Z-space travel worked. Meanwhile, I went into his small quarters and started searching. I found nothing suspicious, until I tried to open a cupboard. It was locked – with a thought-speak detector specifically for his thought-speak. We'd have to get into it another time – I knew Rachel couldn't keep him distracted forever. A few minutes later we met back up in our own quarters to discuss the new information.


	10. The mission part 2

-Rachel-

Marco told me about the locked cupboard. I knew we had to get into it. The only way we could think of was to morph Ganlor. Cassie would not like it, but we had to find out what was in there. Marco had already hacked into his computer and found nothing. We both had the feeling that whatever we were looking for was in that cupboard. How were we going to acquire Ganlor? His tail blade was very intimidating and Andalites did not touch one another very frequently.

Honestly, I was grateful for the distraction of planning and recon. We spent a lot of time on the bridge of the ship watching how things were done, as well as in our room discussing plans over various card games. It made it easier to forget the wedding and emotions when I had something to focus on. Not to mention the fact that Marco and I were still sharing a bed, as weird as that sounds.

We were in the middle of a fierce game of Texas Hold 'em, throwing out ideas on how to acquire Ganlor in the short amount of time we had left …

"Raise 50." Marco said throwing some poker chips into the center of the table. "Could we knock him out with something? Slip some zinozine into his liquid grass?"

(A/N: Zinozine is a chemical they use to keep the controllers asleep while the Yeerks die - it keeps the controller asleep for 3 days without harming the host. I read about this in an alternate ending to the Animorphs series, and decided to borrow it. This particular alternate ending is not on the fanfiction website, so I don't know who the author is to recognize. It was not my idea and I can't take credit for it.)

"No, he'd know about it." I answered. "Call. And zinozine lasts too long – if he was out for 3 days one of us would have to pose as him the whole time, it wouldn't work."

"Cobra poison?" Marco asked glancing down at the cards on the table. "I'll put you all in." he grinned fiercely at me.

"Hmmm." I glared at my cards and the ones on the table, then at the small pile of chips in front of me. "I'll fold. Cobra poison might work, if you can control it well enough, and if there is a way he wouldn't realize he was out." I said.

"Couldn't we just do it while he's asleep?" Marco asked, collecting the large pile of chips on the table. He flashed his cards at me – he'd had a pair of 3s. That was it! Grrrrr, why did I always fall for it when he bluffed?

"Maybe." Was all I said, still seething over the loss. Suddenly I had an idea. "Wait! We don't necessarily have to _morph_ Ganlor. If we could just get on him as fleas or some other bug, maybe he'd open the cupboard while we were in there!"

"Yeah, but bugs don't see or hear much." he responded, skeptically "And there's no guarantee he would even open the cupboard while we were in there! What if he didn't leave before the time limit was up? You want to be trapped as a bug?"

"No, but I think it might work." I said stubbornly. "It's risky, but we've got to find out…" He cut me off.

"It might work, but we couldn't go together." He said. "If we were both captured, we'd be completely screwed. At least one of us should stay out to page Ganlor or something if time gets too close."

"OK." I answered, thinking about it. "I'll follow him in as a fly, you keep track of time. If I have problems I can always call to you in thought-speak so you can distract Ganlor somehow."

We waited until Ganlor switched spots with one of his co-pilots and walked toward his room. I quickly morphed fly and followed Marco who was following Ganlor toward his quarters.

I landed on Ganlor's belly and we were in. Soon, I felt a vibration and a wooshing. I think he'd opened the cupboard! What luck! We walked toward it and suddenly, the cupboard was big enough for his whole body. He walked _into the cupboard! _ Weird!

But then I "heard" those horrific mechanical-sounding words -Close your eyes to prepare for Gleet Biofilter!- Oh no! I flew out of there as quickly as I could. As it was, it still blinded and paralyzed me. I fell to the floor, unable to move, back in Ganlor's quarters.

-Marco!- I called in thought-speak, knowing he couldn't answer. -It's not a cupboard – it's some sort of hidden compartment and there is a Gleet BioFilter at the entrance. I'm paralyzed and blind! I can't move!-


	11. The mission part 3

-Marco-

Great. Rachel was a blind, paralyzed fly on the floor of a probably traitorous Andalite's quarters. I made sure the door to our room was locked, and morphed gorilla so I could use thought-speak.

-Rachel?- I asked

-What?- she asked sounding tense.

-Maybe you can wait until Ganlor leaves and then just demorph.- I suggested.

-How am I going to know when he leaves? - She asked, -I can't see or move.-

-I'm going to cut some wires to make them think we need to drop out of Z-space for awhile. Hopefully they'll call Ganlor to the bridge when that happens and you'll be able to get out. For now I guess you'll just have to wait. - I said.

-OK,-

I knew Rachel probably wouldn't like that plan, but what could I do? If she morphed while he was in there, she'd blow our cover for sure. Luckily, I'd seen some large rodents chewing on the wires in the docking bay when we searched it. I'd just have to acquire one, morph it and chew apart the specific wires required for calculating Z-space travel. I'd studied the specs for this ship, so I knew how they worked and approximately which wires I'd need to cut.

So as I started going about this plan, Rachel said. -Marco?-

-Yeah Rach?-

-Be careful.-

-I will.-

I smiled as I made my way down to the docking bay. She was worried about me. Ganlor was in with Rachel and the other two Andalites were on the bridge, so I knew it was pretty safe to be walking down the hallway. I went into the docking bay and found one of the rodents to acquire, then quickly morphed it.

Morphing is never probable. This time, I ended up with a 2 foot long naked tail sticking out of my otherwise normal body. Yuck! And as I began to shrink, brown fur began to cover my body. My face elongated and my legs shrunk. Within a few minutes, I was a foot long rat, essentially.

"Boy, am I glad these aren't native to Earth!" I thought. It's pretty freaky to see a foot long rat! I guessed they must be native to the Andalite homeworld. They were pests, and I knew the Andalites wouldn't suspect us if one of them were to chew through a wire. So I did.

The first one made all the lights go off. Whoops, that wasn't the idea. Then I found the wire I was looking for – to the Z-space computer. I chewed through it and the ship lurched. I felt a whooshing as it dropped out of Z-space and couple minutes later, I heard the thought-speak announcement I was waiting for. -Commander Ganlor-Sirbabial-Raynier to the bridge immediately.-

I quickly demorphed in the dark docking bay and made my way back to our quarters. Then I put on my outer clothing and walked up to the bridge.

"What happened?" I asked innocently. I looked out one of the windows. "We're not in Z-space anymore!"

The Andalite looked at me with one of its stalk eyes, never taking its main eyes off of the computer screens. -We are trying to locate the problem right now. Something appears to have happened to the Z-space computers. The trip will be continuing shortly. Nothing for you to concern yourself with.-

"Ok." I said turning around. Ganlor was there, looking at the computer screen. -What are you doing here?- he asked.

"I was just finding out why we're not in Z-space anymore." I said heading back toward our room.

After I was back in the room, I morphed the giant rat again so I could talk to Rachel. I told her to get out - that Ganlor wasn't there anymore.

As the rat, I snuck down the hall to Ganlor's quarters to make sure Rachel got out ok. She was human coming out and saw me. "Ugh!" I heard her whisper. "That's the biggest rat I've ever seen!"

-C'mon, hurry we've got to get back to our quarters so they don't think we're suspicious of anything. - I said,

"Why are you a giant rat?" she whispered as she quietly ran down the hallway.

I didn't answer her yet. I'd explain when we got there.


	12. The mission part 4

-Rachel-

We went into our quarters and I sat down while Marco demorphed.

"OK, so why were you a rat that looks like it belongs in a horror movie?" I asked shuddering as he demorphed. He sat down in another chair and looked at me.

"It's the only thing on this ship that I could morph without looking suspicious." He said. "Most animals don't commonly inhabit space ships, but those do."

"OK," I said, ready to discuss what to do next. "Well, we know for sure that there is something very suspicious about that secret compartment if there is a Gleet Biofilter at the entrance."

"Yeah, but now the only way to get in for sure is to morph Ganlor." Marco said. "Without blowing our cover, that is." He glanced at me and grinned. "The Xena approach won't work this time."

"OK." I sighed. "But we only have another week, assuming they can easily fix whatever you did to the Z-space computer, so we have to work quickly."

"The other option would just be to wait until we get to the Andalite homeworld and then follow him around." Marco suggested.

"No! We need to find out what it is before it gets to the Andalite homeworld. It might be too late when we get there!" I said urgently, "For all we know, there might be a nuclear bomb in there, or worse! It has to happen before we land. So how do we acquire Ganlor? It's the only way to get in there past the Gleet Biofilter."

"While he's asleep, maybe?" Marco said, thoughtfully.

"Yeah" I said, coming up with a plan. "I can morph to flea, somehow land on him, demorph when he's asleep and acquire him, then morph cockroach and slip under the door."

"But what if he woke up while you were morphing? Or you thought he was asleep, but he wasn't – fleas don't have real good senses." Marco reminded me.

"You have a better idea?" I asked, a little irritated that he was being so paranoid.

"Well, we talked about cobra venom before...I think I can control the dosage so he just sleeps a little longer than normal." Marco said.

"Cobra venom." I mused, warming up to the idea, but not too keen on the fact that I wouldn't be a big part of the action. "OK, so we monitor his habits. When it looks like he's going to his quarters to sleep, you morph the snake and hide in his room. I'll morph roach and sneak under the door after he's in already. You can bite him and we'll both demorph and acquire him so we can go into the locked cupboard."

"Um," Marco said hesitantly, "Is there a reason we _both_ need to go? I mean, you could just stay here and ... "

He stopped suddenly when he saw my face. "Riiiiiiiiiiiight!" I said. "Like I'm gonna let you go in by yourself without backup. It's too risky. No way. I'm going too, that's final."

"Ay-Ay Captain Xena." He said looking almost startled by my insistence.

We started monitoring when Ganlor went into his quarters for long periods of time – when he wasn't working the bridge. Two days later, we got ready to carry out the plan. Marco hid in Ganlor's room, in one of the unlocked cabinets with the door cracked partially so he could still get out when it was time. I morphed roach and followed Ganlor. I told Marco when he was in and waited outside the door.

In about ½ hour, Marco called to me in thought-speak. -He's asleep and I bit him, so he should stay that way for a while. You can come in now, Xena.-

I crawled under the door into the dark room as a roach and demorphed. Marco was already half human. We finished and acquired Ganlor. I morphed first, but we quickly realized that the quarters were not going to be large enough for 3 fully grown Andalites. We would have to take turns.

I walked up, opened the door, entered through the Gleet BioFilter, and demorphed. Marco did the same. We walked in.

-Marco-

We entered a whole secret compartment on the ship. There was a soft glow coming from one side. We walked over to it and found a Yeerk pool! We looked into it and saw the portable Kandrona and probably about 100 Yeerks swimming around in the sludge. I was surprised that we hadn't realized this compartment was here – the ship wasn't very big, so it didn't seem like there would be room for much that we couldn't see.

There was a computer at the other end of the room. I morphed Ganlor and walked up to it, to see what I could find out. Rachel was right behind me.

-Oh my God!- I exclaimed privately to Rachel. -They've infested every couple that's gone on this trip - right before landing on the Andalite homeworld! And we were supposed to be next!-

Rachel looked like she was going to be sick. I looked at her. -What are we going to do?-

"We have to do something. We can't let them keep this up."

-Let's go back to the room to discuss it.- I suggested, feeling drained. -We've learned all we need to know.-

I went back through the BioFilter and demorphed. Rachel morphed, then went through, and demorphed. We both went back to our quarters, thoroughly exhausted from all the repeated morphing.


	13. Relaxing

-Marco-

"Want to see if the hot tub works?" I asked hopefully.

She raised an eyebrow at me. I guess she'd forgotten about it, but the idea of soaking my exhausted body in hot water with soothing jets was just too good to pass up. She sighed wearily.

"OK."

We put our suits on and sat in the hot water, relaxing. "So." I said, starting the conversation. "What are we going to do about the Yeerks? And how are we going to prevent them from infesting_ us?" _

"I don't know." Rachel replied, tensely staring into the bubbling water.

"The easiest way to keep from getting infested, would be to kill the Yeerks, but if Ganlor discovered all the Yeerks dead, he'd know something was up." I said leaning back against the edge of the tub.

"Could we make it look like one of those big rat things did it?" Rachel asked, looking at me.

I thought about it for a moment. "Probably, but what if there was an alarm? Even a rat would set it off."

"If there was an alarm, wouldn't the other Andalites hear it too?" She asked.

"They might be controllers too, you know." I reminded her.

"Ugh." She said looking down.

We both sat there thinking for a while. I looked at her – she was wearing a black bikini with some rhinestones on it. She looked beautiful, as usual, but very tense and very tired. I guess I must have been staring because she looked up at me, her eyes half-open, and then raised an eyebrow and said, "What?!"

"Nothing" I looked away. There was far too much riding on this mission to get involved, especially when she didn't feel the same way about me.

Then I had an idea. "Maybe we just need to relax for a while?" I suggested. She nodded at me, puzzled.

"Hang on a sec." I said, climbing out of the spa. I went to the small refrigerator and got out the bottle of champagne I'd stashed there. There were some glasses in the kitchen, so I got those too and carried them back into the bathroom. "Champagne?" I offered grinning.

She looked up at me and smiled weakly. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to seduce me."

"Well, we _are_ on our honeymoon." I teased. She took the glass anyway. I wasn't really trying anything, I just wanted her to relax for a while. It was stressful, finding out what we'd just learned.

Who'd have thought that Yeerks would be back? We sipped on our champagne in silence for a while. I looked down. Rachel's foot was there next to mine. So tiny, with its dainty, perfectly manicured toenails. I decided to gamble. I sat down my drink, picked up her foot and started to massage it.

She started to pull away. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea..." she started, but then her eyes kind of glazed over and she quit pulling away. I guess it must have felt really good. I smiled. We sat in comfortable silence.

She let me rub both her feet and she didn't even protest when I started on her shoulders. She'd never even let me touch her before! I wonder what changed?

After a while I stopped and sat next to her. Rather than moving away, she scooted closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder! I put my arm around her and she whispered "Thanks" in my ear.

I honestly couldn't believe it was real! I pinched myself a couple times and looked down. She was still there, cuddled up next to me. Unbelievable!

-Rachel-

I knew I shouldn't have let my guard down like that, but it was so nice to be close to him! I'd forgotten what it was like to be so close to another person. But now what? We obviously couldn't just pretend nothing was happening. I didn't even want to anymore!

Tobias was dead. Eight years is a long time, I think it's time to move on. When Tobias and I had talked about it during the war, we'd decided to enjoy each day as it came because there was a good chance one of us could be killed on any given day.

I made a decision just then. I decided to remember all the good times Tobias and I had shared, and move on toward the future. Was Marco part of my future? I didn't know, but I really wanted to find out!

I was still sitting in the hot tub with my head on his shoulder while I was thinking about all of this. I looked up at him. He looked very content. Strange considering what we'd discovered earlier. Well, maybe not so strange. I looked down at my feet and smiled. I'd forgotten all about it for a while too. I looked back up at him and our eyes met.

"Marco?" I said

"Hm?" he said, his eyes kinda glazed over.

"I just made a decision." I said.

"Oh?" He answered. "What's that?"

I leaned over and kissed him square on the lips. I don't think he was expecting it because it took him a couple seconds to respond, but then he did. I think he wanted to kiss me as much as I'd wanted to kiss him! He wrapped his arms around me and held me close. Wow! The man could kiss! This was far better than the wedding and totally different than anything I'd experienced. Mmmmmmmm.

Eventually we pulled apart, breathless, and smiling. I don't think Marco knew what to say. I didn't either, so we just sat there staring at each other.

What felt like an eternity later (it was probably only a couple minutes) Marco said, "Um, you know, we probably ought to get out." He looked at his hands. "We're starting to look like giant raisins!"

I looked down at my hands and giggled. They were pretty wrinkly from sitting in the water for so long! "OK." I said, smiling at him.

We both got out and dried off. Suddenly, I felt shy. What was I going to say? I'd kissed _him_, not the other way around! He was looking at me, expectantly.

I didn't know what to do, so I walked over to the closet to get some dry pajamas. Then I carried them into the bathroom and closed the door. Marco just stood there, watching me the whole time. He was probably still staring at the bathroom door after I closed it.

As I changed into the dry clothes, I thought about what had happened and wondered what was going to happen next. We still had to share a bed! That might make things . . . complicated.

"Oh Boy." I gave a nervous sigh before opening the door to the bathroom and walking out.


	14. Distractions

**DISCLAIMER**: I'm not sure if I was supposed to do this in every chapter or just at the beginning, but I didn't create the Animorphs – KA Applegate did. I just realized that the name "Ganlor" is the same as it is in The Final Case by Weird Blondy. I'm not good at coming up with names, so hopefully he/she isn't offended that I borrowed/stole hers.

-Marco-

I think I'm going to be in shock for the next week. Rachel _kissed _me! _Rachel _kissed _me!_ I never thought it would happen, especially since she'd made such a big deal out of it at the wedding and stuff!

I stared at the door to the bathroom for a couple seconds after she closed it and then realized I should probably change too. I quickly changed into a pair of dry pajama pants and sat down on the end of the bed, wondering what to do next.

A couple minutes later, Rachel came out of the bathroom. Oh boy. I just kinda stared at her and she was staring back at me. She sat down on a chair, across from the bed and looked at me.

I finally couldn't stand the silence any longer. "What changed?" I asked, hoping I sounded as dumbfounded as I felt.

She glanced down, "I ... I let go." She said simply and looked back up into my eyes. "Eight years is long enough. I need to grow up and move on. He's gone. I'm just sorry it took me so long to realize that." She looked down again, as if embarrassed.

I'm sure I had a shocked look on my face, so I looked at the floor. I didn't know what to say. I'd dreamed of the day when she might change her mind, but I thought it wouldn't ever happen. I'd had a crush on her for a very long time, but it had developed into far more than that during the years we'd been working together. I had thought I could never tell her, but I was in love with her. I had been for a long time.

Now definitely wasn't the time to say anything, though. We were still on a mission. We could easily both get killed or infested. We couldn't afford to get distracted now. Oh man. I knew what I had to do, and I didn't think Rachel was going to like it much. I wasn't too happy about it myself, but I could see how the mission should go. The line from A to B didn't include Rachel and I getting involved – emotionally or physically. Oh, the irony!

Rachel and I were on our "honeymoon" after getting "married" and she was finally letting go of Tobias and moving on! And I couldn't do anything about it because we had to focus on finishing the mission to save Earth, the Andalites, and ourselves.

I looked up at her. God, she was beautiful. I was almost ready to forget the mission right then . . . No. "Later," I promised myself. "We can worry about it later. If we don't focus on the mission, there might not _be_ a later."

I stood up and looked at the bed. "I'll take the floor." I walked over to grab my pillow and blanket.

Rachel gave me a confused look as she stood up too. "You don't have to . . . "

"Yeah, I do." I interrupted her, smiling weakly. "We're still on a mission. It wasn't too distracting to share a bed with you before, but now..." I looked suggestively over at the bathroom and then looked back at her.

She pressed her lips together and looked down. Not that I was staring at her lips or anything . . . "Keep talking," I said to myself, "Stop thinking about her and keep talking."

So I continued my little speech, "If we don't concentrate on this mission, life as we know it could be over, along with the possibility of any future relationship between us. You know I'm right. _I _know I'm right and I'm really not happy about it." She kinda smiled at that, so I kept talking, more to convince myself than anything. "It is incentive, though. I mean, the sooner we take care of the Yeerks and Ganlor, the sooner we can ... uh ... distract each other?"

She smirked when I said that. "OK," she said still snickering, "I'll try not to _distract_ you anymore. . . . But you started it!" She was smiling at me, even as she joked.

"I did not!" I said indignantly, "You kissed me! How did _I_ start anything?" I was smiling too, not really being serious.

She rolled her eyes at me and shook her head, still smiling. "Goodnight, Marco." She said walking over to the bed.

"G'night Princess." I said grinning at her as I made my bed on the floor and laid on it.

She shut the light off and I tried to go to sleep. I couldn't sleep. It wasn't the floor – it wasn't too cold and the carpet made it pretty comfortable, but I couldn't seem to turn off my mind. How could I? The evening kept replaying itself in my head – sitting in the hot tub, giving her a foot massage, kissing. I guess it's too late to not be distracted. How could I even think about anything else? So I just lay there, smiling, thinking about Rachel and what might happen once this mission was finally over.

-Rachel-

I lay in bed, alone, just thinking. Tobias and Marco were so completely different. How could I love both of them? But I knew the answer. I wasn't the same person I was during the war. I had grown up.

At the time, I was imagining getting married, settling down with Tobias to a quiet life. Having kids and just living like normal humans. Now I know that it wouldn't have been enough. I loved the excitement of the war, even if the battles were dangerous and stressful. And my job now was similar – exciting, sometimes dangerous . . . and very fulfilling. Sitting at home all the time wouldn't have been satisfying, even if it _had_ been with Tobias.

I knew that if something were happening between Marco and I, that we wouldn't quit all the missions. We were a good team and if he were my husband rather than . . . whoops, that's a little too fast, isn't it? Doesn't seem like it. We've known each other forever, and he's been my best friend for quite a long time too.

As partners, we seem to work well together. I can be reckless and all gung-ho when we need to be, but he keeps that at bay and knows when we need to plan things out first. He's really good at planning and thinking through all the options. It's strange that I never realized how well we complement one another before...

I woke up the next morning, turned the light on low and looked over at Marco – he was still asleep. Should I wake him? I looked at the clock and thought about how silly it was to keep time. There was no night or day in space – just time continuing endlessly. In New York on Earth it would have been 7AM, so I decided to get up and shower and leave Marco asleep. By the time I got out of the shower, Marco was sitting at the computer desk.

He looked at me when I opened the door, a troubled look on his face. "Houston, we have a problem."

(A/N: Don't worry, I have the next chapter started already. Sorry it took so long to get this one out – I couldn't figure out how to say what I wanted to say. What do you think?)


	15. Complications

-Rachel-

"Uh-oh" I said. "What's wrong?"

"Our scheduled arrival time to the Andalite Homeworld has dropped from five days to one. Apparently a Z-space rift opened up and they don't have to go around it."

"Crap!" I said.

"Yeah." He said, sighing heavily and leaning back in the desk chair with his hands behind his head. He looked over at me. "They may not try to infest us until after we land, but our best chance is destroying the Yeerks right away."

I started pacing, thinking about what to do. "Where's Jake when you need him?" I muttered, still thinking. I came up with nothing. I looked over at Marco.

We needed to figure out what to do. "Is there any way we can do this without blowing our cover?" I was frustrated with how tight time had suddenly become.

"Well," he said, looking like he was trying to hide something from me.

"Tell me." I said with my hands on my hips. He had something, I could tell.

He gave me a worried smile. He pulled up a layout of the ship on the computer. "Air ventilation ducts. The ducts run to all parts of the ship. If they didn't go into the Yeerk pool room, we wouldn't have been able to breathe in there, so we could morph the rats and climb into the duct system. But..."

I didn't get it. "But what? Why are you so worried? That sounds like it should work..."

He pointed to another part of the screen. "Not necessarily. First, we don't know if we'll be able to get the panels off when we get into the Yeerk pool room and second, the ducts are like a maze through this place. It will be difficult to follow them. Finally, they've scheduled to seal the air ducts and gas the rats out shortly before landing, in hopes of getting rid of them. So if we didn't get in and out in time ..."

"Oh Boy." I breathed, plopping down in a chair next to him.

"Add that to the fact that they may have even installed those Gleet BioFilters in the airduct panels ... " Marco continued. "It's too risky. There's not enough time to plan."

I thought for a minute. "Can you find out when we're scheduled to be infested?" I asked.

Marco turned back to the computer and started hacking into the main computer system. I stood up and put my hand on his shoulder watching. He glanced up at me and smiled, then focused back on the computer, muttering to himself as code after code locked him out. Finally, he was in. "Four hours." He announced. "They're going to do it while we're on the ship."

I had a plan. It was risky and very dangerous, but it would keep us from getting infested, and might even get us into the Andalite homeworld's yeerk pool. I told Marco.

"It's insane." He said grinning and shaking his head. "But I think it'll work."

"Let's do it!" I said grinning fiercely. He groaned.

We took off our outer clothing – down to our morph suits. They were almost like uniforms now.

Shortly after we started working together, Marco had again mentioned the morphing suit issue, especially since we never knew what the climate would be like where we'd be working. So we got matching suits. They were skin tight so we could morph them, but they had boots that were tight and protected our feet when we didn't have access to shoes. They were made from wet suit material, zipped up the front, and were far warmer than our bike shorts or leotards ever had been.

We almost looked like superheroes because Marco had insisted we get our initials on the front, so mine all had silver R's sewn on the left shoulder and his had M's. I thought it was a little silly, but it didn't look bad. The one I had on now was dark blue and Marco's was black.

The first part of my plan? We had to acquire each other – and make sure we had morphing suits incorporated into our morphs. It was easy, but time consuming. When we'd finally done that without completely embarrassing each other, we reached the second part of the plan – the risky part, and we only had 3 hours left.

I morphed a mouse and snuck up toward the bridge to watch Ganlor and make sure he stayed there. When I told Marco in thoughtspeak that Ganlor was still on the bridge and looked like he'd stay there a while, he, as himself, quietly ran down the hallway and entered Ganlor's quarters. I assumed he'd be in and out quickly. I kept an eye on Ganlor and none of the Andalites seemed to notice I was there. When he was done, he was supposed to tell me and we'd trade places. All the Andalites looked busy doing something on the bridge, so I didn't have much to do.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Marco called to me. -OK, I'm out.-

-Everything alright?- I asked in disbelief. It couldn't be this easy.

-Other than being totally grossed out? I just acquired a yeerk! A YEERK! Ewww! Why did I let you . . .- His thought speak cut out right then, I guess he must have been demorphing back in our room.

-Stop complaining, you big baby.- I responded as I was scurrying back toward our room. -It's better than being a controller!-

I got back to the room and demorphed. "Ready?" I asked.

"As I'll ever be." He said starting his morph. "First a rat, then a Yeeeeeeeernt" he said as his face bulged outward.

"Ew." I interjected as he switched back to thoughtspeak. -Could this day get any grosser?-

"Yeah it could." I said. "What about an ant? Or a termite? Wouldn't those be far worse than a rat?"

-Yeah, but not a yeerk. Nothing is worse than a yeerk.- He answered.

I couldn't help but agree. I opened the door a crack and he scurried out toward the bridge. "Be careful." I muttered softly.

After I waited a couple minutes, he said -OK, they're all here and it looks like they'll be a while. One of the Andalites is reprogramming the Z-space computer to ...- He droned on about the Z-space computer. I didn't understand it really, but he'd spent a lot of time learning about the computers so he could be the hacker on our missions. I mostly ignored him.

I snuck out, down the hall, and opened the door to Ganlor's quarters. I went inside, morphed Ganlor, and went into the cupboard that wasn't really a cupboard. There was the yeerk pool. I demorphed, reached in and acquired a yeerk. No problems yet. I quickly morphed Ganlor to go back out when Marco called to me. -Rachel, Ganlor's heading that way! Hide!- He said urgently.

Great. I realized there was only one place I could hide where I wouldn't be found. -Marco!- I called -I'm going to morph the Yeerk and hide in the pool. Keep track of time, ok?-

-OK, but I'm going to try and get him to come back onto the bridge so you can escape.- Marco replied, sounding freaked.

-Fine with me- I replied as I demorphed. I was not looking forward to this at all. I climbed into the Yeerk pool and started the morph, the soft squishy Yeerks running into my legs as they swam blindly through the sludge.

-Marco-

Marco to the rescue! Again. Just how many close calls were we going to have on this mission? I had to come up with something to get Ganlor away from his quarters.

I decided to take the simple approach. I morphed Ganlor and sent a page for him to go to the bridge. I doubted Andalites could tell the difference in one another's thought speak. I was going to go to the bridge to distract the Andalites with some complex computer question when I realized I couldn't use thoughtspeak when I wasn't in morph. How would I tell Rachel to escape? I'd have to morph. The only morph I had that Ganlor wouldn't suspect was Rachel.

I morphed Rachel and headed toward the bridge, trying to remember what Ganlor had seen of her and how he'd expect her to act. I got to the bridge and Ganlor was there. I went over to one of the Andalites and asked him a question I already knew the answer to, but I expected Rachel didn't.

While he was explaining the answer, I called to Rachel. -Ganlor is not near the room, so you can go ahead and escape. I'm on the bridge talking to one of the Andalites, but I morphed you. So when you come out, morph me. We don't want them to see two of you at once.-

She didn't respond. I guessed she was probably too human at the time, but I knew she could hear me. I kept nodding my head at the Andalite. I kept an eye on Ganlor who was apparently having a private conversation with the other Andalite. Good, he was still there. Finally he finished answering my question and I said. "Oh, OK!" Weird. Rachel's voice sounded so funny coming from my own mouth!

I stood there thinking for a minute, wondering if I should ask another question when Rachel finally responded. -I'm coming up to the bridge as you. Then we can get back to our room.-

Then, I walked onto the bridge. Not me, but my body – Rachel in morph. Whoa. That was weird. I was Rachel and she was me! Seriously bizarre! But I couldn't look like I was shocked. So I walked over to her and said, "Hi honey, what are you doing here?" in Rachel's high voice. It still felt weird to talk as her.

In thoughtspeak she said -Honey?- she sounded amused.

Aloud he/she replied "I was looking for you, there's something I need to show you back in our quarters." Looking at myself this close was even weirder.

"OK." I said, then turned around toward the Andalite I'd been pestering. "Thanks for answering my question!"

He blinked one stalk eye at me, but didn't say anything.

Rachel as me and I as her ran down the hall to our quarters and shut the door. I demorphed immediately. Rachel did the same. We both sat down on the end of the bed. She looked at me.

"That was a little close." She said, sighing heavily.

"Not to mention really really weird." I said, remembering.

"How much time do we have left?" she asked, looking exhausted.

I looked over at the clock. "An hour." I replied. "So what's it like being a Yeerk? Do they have any weird instincts I should prepare for?"

She looked down. "Not really," She said shaking her head, then looking up at me. "They can't really see or hear anything. They don't really seem to communicate at all in the pool."

"OK." I said, not happy about what we had to do. "Let's go, then."

The plan was completely nuts. A person can't be infested by two yeerks at once, so the plan was for one of us to infest the other as a yeerk and when they tried to infest us the first time, whoever was the yeerk would come out partway and then go back in. We needed to practice that part. We knew we might have to do it while we were on the Andalite homeworld too, so we both had to practice being yeerks and infesting each other. That was why we had to acquire each other – in case they were looking for one of us specifically to infest first. We had to have both of us available, but already be infested before they came for us.

Rachel lost the coin toss, so she would be the yeerk first. We filled the hot tub with water so it would be more like actually infesting from the yeerk pool. Then we both got in and looked at each other, remembering what had happened the last time we were in the hot tub together. I grinned at her. "Slime time!"

She looked like she was going to be sick. "Yuck." She muttered, "I am so _not_ looking forward to this." She looked down, as if she were thinking. Suddenly, she leaned over and kissed my lips hard and quick. Then she sat back, took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut tight as she started morphing into the yeerk.


	16. Rescue

**Meanwhile, Back on Earth . . . **

-Cassie-

I got a phone call around 4pm while I was cleaning up my clinic. I'd started my own Wildlife Clinic after I finished vet school. My parents kept theirs too, so between the two of us, we were able to rescue pretty much all the injured wildlife in the area. There was also a Raptor Rehabilitation Center (RRC) in a nearby town, so my Dad's and my centers focused mostly on smaller birds and other injured animals.

Jake was training morph-capable soldiers during the day and I had moved into his house after we got married.

Anyway, I put down the broom I was using to clean the floor and walked over to the phone.

"Cassie?" Someone said on the other end of the line.

"Speaking." I replied, unsure who would be calling.

"It's Chris, from the RRC? We've got a hawk down here, and we can't seem to do anything with him. He's been biting anyone who opens his cage, so we can't feed him or anything."

"Oh dear." I said. "How long has this been going on?"

"Only a couple days, but his cage is getting really dirty and his water is almost gone!" he replied. "He was so passive before – we've had him for about forever and he only has one wing, so we can't let him go. He's been a pet here for so long that I've grown attached to him. I'd feel awful if we had to put him down."

"I'll see what I can do." I said. "I'll try and come by in about 45 minutes, ok?"

"Sure." he replied. "Thanks Cassie." He sounded relieved. I'd worked with Chris before, so he knew I would do anything I could to help an animal. Unfortunately, this meant I might not be home for dinner. I had to call Jake.

I called Jake on his cell phone. "Jake?"

"Cassie! Hey, what's up?" He said in his easy-going voice. He sounded happy to hear from me. Too bad I was going to burst his bubble.

"There's a hawk over at the RRC that's causing problems. I'm going to go over and see if there's something I can do."

"Oh. But that's a half hour drive and it's supposed to snow this afternoon!" He said, no longer sounding so happy.

"My truck has 4-wheel drive. I'll be fine. They really need my help." I patiently explained.

"Can I come with you?" He asked.

"I was going to leave in the next 15 minutes." I answered. "If you can leave work and get here by then, ok." He was being overprotective. It was just snow, for Pete's sake!

(A/N: Does it snow in Northern California? I'm not sure, but it does in this story!).

"I'll be there." He answered. "Love you."

"Love you too." I answered. "Bye."

"Bye."

He showed up in about 14 minutes, gave me a kiss, and we got in my truck. I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. Flurries were just starting to come down.

Jake gave me an "I told you so" look. I ignored it. I merged onto the highway and the snowflakes started getting bigger. Great. Now I was glad Jake was there. We might be stuck here all night if the snow didn't quit.

We kept going, but it was after 5 when we finally got there. We walked into the center and Chris met us at the door.

"Wow, I'm glad you made it. It's really coming down out there!" he said.

"Yeah. I'm here. Jake came to help too." I said. Chris had met Jake at our wedding. "Where's the hawk you were talking about?"

We walked into another room full of cages. There was a red-tailed hawk with only one wing in a large cage in the corner. I walked over to it.

The name plate said "Jet." "Is Jet the hawk causing the problems?" I asked looking at the beautiful bird. How sad it was that he only had one wing.

Chris followed us and Jake hung back, watching. "Yeah." He said. "I hope you can at least get him out of there so we can change his water and clean his cage."

I looked at the hawk. "OK, buddy, let's see if you like me any better than Chris." I muttered to the hawk. I pulled on a pair of huge leather gloves and started to open the cage.

"Careful." Jake said.

I gave him a look. I'd done this tons of times, so there wasn't much that could happen that I didn't expect. Or so I thought.

The hawk looked up at me when I opened the cage and sort of shuddered. –Cassie?- I heard in thoughtspeak. I lost my grip on the latch to the cage and took an involuntary step backward, nearly running into Jake. I stared at the hawk. "It can't be." I whispered.

-Jake-

Cassie was standing there about 2 feet from the hawk's cage with the latch left undone, just staring at the hawk, like she'd seen a ghost. I wasn't going to just let it get out, but I heard the thoughtspeak too. –Cassie?- it had said. It wasn't possible, was it? Tobias was dead – we'd seen him get shot by the dracon beam.

If he were alive, he would have found one of us, wouldn't he?

I put a hand on Cassie's shoulder. "Are you ok?" I asked. She was still staring at the hawk. I moved around her to relatch the cage, and the bird looked at me. –Jake?- it said. Now _I_ was staring at it! "No way!" I said in the same shocked whisper Cassie had used. It was a red-tailed hawk, I was sure. I'd seen Tobias enough times to know exactly what he looked like, but he looked so different with only one wing!

"T- T- Tobias?" I whispered, vocalizing both Cassie's and my disbelief.

-Yeah, it's me.- He answered. –Boy, am I glad to see you!-

We had to figure out what to do next. I figured the best plan would be to try to take Tobias back to Cassie's clinic so we could let him demorph and he could tell us what he'd been doing for the past 8 years. But how to do it? I glanced out the window. It was still snowing. I didn't think we'd want to drive home tonight anyway.

Cassie looked at Tobias and whispered. "Can I pick you up so they can clean your cage?"

-OK. I'm so tired of being stuck in here!- Tobias answered.

Cassie put the gloves back on, reached into the cage and lifted Tobias out. Chris came up and took the cage. He looked back at Cassie holding Tobias. "Wow." He said. "Thanks!"

I overheard him mention to one of the other employees "I told you she could do it."

I spoke quietly with Cassie and Tobias while Tobias' cage was being cleaned. Cassie said she thought she could convince them to let us take Tobias back with us, if Tobias acted like he was sick. We couldn't do anything that night, so I called a nearby hotel and Cassie and I went there for the night, leaving Tobias behind and promising to be back in the morning. He planned to feign being sick in the morning so they would ask Cassie to come back."

We went into the room and sat down on the bed, Cassie still looked shocked. "Who would have ever thought?" She said.

"I know," I replied. "I wonder how he survived? And why he didn't contact any of us? Especially Rachel!"

"I don't know." Cassie replied. "But we'll find out tomorrow, I'm sure. Let's get some food – I'm starved!" She grinned at me and I put my arm around her and kissed her. "Room service?" I asked, "Or should we order a pizza?"

"Oh, I don't care." She said sighing and leaning into me.

We spent the evening eating pizza, watching movies on TV, and just snuggling. It was very relaxing and nice. I was so glad I'd decided to go with Cassie to the RRC.

The next morning we woke up to a phone call from the RRC. "Cassie?" a voice asked. "Hang on a sec." I replied. It was Chris. Does that guy live at the center? Wow. I nudged Cassie awake and handed her the phone. "Hello?" she said stifling a yawn. "Uh, Yeah ... Give me an hour or two, I haven't gotten up yet ... ok ... bye." She looked over at the clock. It was 8:15.

Cassie handed me the phone and I hung it up. "Tobias . . . I mean _Jet_ . . . is acting weird. Chris wants me to come examine him this morning - that ok?"

"Everything as planned." I replied smiling into her dark brown eyes. She turned over to go back to sleep, but I put my arm around her and leaned close. "We should probably get up, though." I whispered in her ear.

"Just a half hour more?" She begged. She turned to look me in the eyes again and her lips brushed across mine. I started kissing her and we got a little carried away. I don't know how much time passed before we finally got up. By 10, though, we were both showered and at the RRC ready to rescue Tobias.

-Tobias-

So Jake's plan was for me to fake being sick in the morning so they'd have to come back and take me to Cassie's clinic. I had been biting people because they were ticking me off. I was trapped in a little cage! I couldn't fly or move around. It was tiresome. So in the morning, I lay on the bottom of the cage, flapping my wing a little and kicking my legs a little so they'd know I was alive. I hoped I looked sick.

A few hours later, Cassie and Jake showed up with these kinda goofy grins on their faces. Gee, I wonder what they'd been up to? Someone had called Cassie, Dr. Berenson, so I assumed she and Jake must have gotten married at some point. Hopefully they'd be able to convince the RRC employees to let me go with them.

Cassie put the gloves on and picked me up out of the cage and pretended to examine me. Then she put me back and walked into another room to talk to the employees. I couldn't hear her excuse, but obviously it worked because the next thing I knew, my cage was being hoisted into the back of a pick-up truck.

A couple minutes later, the truck stopped and Cassie and Jake came around the back to talk to me. "Do you want to tell us what happened on the way back to the clinic?" Jake asked me.

I morphed human and they let me come into the front of the truck with them. It was surprisingly roomy. I explained everything to Jake and Cassie, including when I heard about Rachel and Marco's wedding on TV and suddenly realized who I was. They sat listening patiently. When I mentioned the part about Rachel and Marco's wedding, they exchanged a glance, like they were hiding something from me. When I asked about it, they just said it was nothing.

So we got back to Cassie's clinic, I demorphed and flew up into the rafters where I'd spent so much time when I was younger. This wasn't the same barn, but it felt the same. Cassie said I could live in her barn as long as I wanted, but I wasn't sure I wanted to stay.

All I really wanted to do was talk to Rachel, though. She was on her honeymoon and basically unreachable, so I'd have to wait until she got back. Who ever heard of taking a space ship on a honeymoon anyway? And Marco? She'd married Marco? I'd had plenty of time to dwell on that, so I could plan out what I was going to say. Congratulations? Maybe. I'm happy for you? Yeah, that was a lie. Who was I kidding?

Maybe I could at least talk to Ax? I hadn't spoken with him in forever. Neither had Jake or Cassie. Over the next few days, Cassie told me what had happened since the end of the war. Rachel and Marco were secret agents for the government and had done all kinds of spy missions.

At least I could fly again. That felt good both to the human me and to the hawk. Since I wasn't crippled anymore, I started hunting again, but I noticed something. It was a lot harder than I remembered. My reflexes weren't very good. I mentioned it to Cassie and she said that I was probably nearing the end of the hawk's life. It had been 11 years since I'd acquired it, and it was probably 5 or 6 at that point in time. That was a shock to me. I'd have to morph human and stay human sometime soon.


	17. Slime Time!

_(A/N: I know, everyone probably wasn't too happy with the last chapter. It was really long and probably not very interesting. I think it needed to be written, though. I was also having a hard time with this chapter because it had been so long since I'd read The Sickness. I couldn't remember exactly what type of instincts the yeerk had when Cassie morphed it, so I had to reread it. _

_BTW, the Animorphs aren't mine. KA Applegate created them, so please don't sue me. _

_Thanks for your reviews. It is incentive to write, knowing people are reading this.)_

**Back on the Andalite Honeymoons space ship**

-Marco-

I closed my eyes – watching Rachel morph a yeerk was not something I wanted to see. My mind was reeling again. So much for not getting distracted. Who ever would have thought Rachel would want to kiss me? Pretty soon she'd be inside my head, as weird as that sounds. I wonder what it will be like? I've never been a controller before ...

I looked down and a yeerk was swimming in the water – Rachel. I picked her up and took a deep breath. Here we go. I held her to my ear.

I could feel the yeerk drilling into my head, but it didn't really hurt. I guess they must have some way of numbing it or something. It couldn't stop the bizarre feeling of being invaded. I knew it was only Rachel, but still. Yeerks were the enemy!

Anyway, pretty soon I could feel the yeerk – Rachel – connecting to my brain. She didn't say anything, but I could feel her connecting to my nerves that controlled everything.

-Rachel?- I asked -You ok?- It was weird being able to talk to her in my head when I wasn't in morph. But oddly enough, she didn't answer.

-Rachel, are you there?- I called again. –Did you lose control of the yeerk morph?-

She was inadvertently reading my memories. Weird, here was something I didn't even know I remembered.

_I was looking down the hallway in the high school at some new girl, trying to get up the nerve to ask her out. _

-Rachel? Talk to me please, you're freaking me out here! Try thought-speak if the yeerk can't talk to me.- I was begging now, freaked that she hadn't spoken yet.

-Right, I forgot.- she said at last. –I'm ok, this is just weird.-

She took over my eyes and ears, bumping into other memories as she did so.

_Sailing with my parents when I was a kid - exhilaration  
_

_Elfangor crash landing on Earth - fear, dread.  
_

_Kissing Rachel at our fake wedding. She was seeing it from my point of view – looking into her own eyes, then kissing her, feeling my amazement afterward as we ran down the aisle._

She was trying to move my body, but it was clumsy, like she wasn't sure how to do it.

-Be careful with my body. I need it.- I tried to joke. She didn't respond.

I think she was embarrassed because she was still unintentionally seeing my memories while she was figuring out how to move my body. I could tell she was trying not to, but I'm sure it must have been hard.

Hopefully she'd be able to give me some advice before it was my turn.

-I think I've got it.- She said, sounding pleased with herself.

-Do you want to try morphing?- I asked. –Might need to ... –

-No, we're short on time. I can just let you do that part if we need to.- she said.

-Ok then.- I said, -Phase 2?-

Rachel walked my body over to the mirror. I could feel her letting go of my brain and coming out my ear.

I watched as a yeerk tail appeared, ever so slightly, then went back in.

-Nope, not far enough.- I said.

I could feel her frustration as she tried again while I watched. This time nearly half of the yeerk was visible before she went back in.

-That'll work, I think.- I told her.

-Ok, then I'm outta here. I'm sick of this morph!- She said taking control and leaning my head over next to the spa.

-Aw, princess, you don't like being in my head?- I taunted and I felt myself get control again as she let go of my brain and dropped into the water.

-Better your head than up your nose again!- she retorted while she demorphed.

I had to smile. I put my finger up to my ear and touched where she'd come out. I guess now it was my turn to be the yeerk. I was not looking forward to this. I climbed into the spa as Rachel finished demorphing.

She shuddered a little once she was completely human.

"You ok?" I asked.

"Yeah." She said smiling weakly. "Hurry up and morph, we've only got ... 20 minutes left!" she said looking at the clock.

"Any suggestions?" I asked, hoping to avoid the problem she'd had.

"Yeah." She said. "Don't let yourself get carried away with the new senses. It's kind of shocking to the yeerk to suddenly be able to see and hear. It's almost too much for the yeerk to ignore."

There wasn't much time left and I was really not looking forward to this. I concentrated and watched the changes begin. My whole body first got covered in slime. Ew! Rachel was making barfing noises. I closed my eyes. I couldn't watch anymore. I felt myself shrinking and all of my organs dissolving.

My hands and legs were sucked up inside me and I continued to shrink. My hearing went away and I couldn't open my eyes anymore. No sight. No sound. Man, what an awful existence! Being a yeerk sucked! I continued the morph until I was a nasty slimy gray slug, just floating around in the water, unable to see or hear.

Now what? Rachel had to pick up and put me in her ear. I felt something warm surround me and then, the yeerk instinct completely took over. The ear. I pushed my way into it, squirting out some sort of numbing solution. I forced aside bones and flesh, squirting and drilling until I found what the yeerk was looking for – the brain. I flattened myself out further and further, filling in all the spaces in the brain and connecting to the neurons there. I poked around and around, looking for the parts that controlled eyes and THERE! I could see! Wow! The colors and ... it was overwhelming!

-Marco?- Rachel asked.

Suddenly, I realized who and what I was again. Sight no longer seemed like such an amazing thing. The problem was, what I was finding was amazing to the human me.

Rachel's memories. I tried to push away from them, find the parts that controlled motor skills, but it was so tempting and they were everywhere.

_Morphing the cat the first time – cool confidence. _

_Flying with Tobias – sheer joy, exhilaration._

_Killing Tom – pain, regret._

Rachel was not happy with me. I could feel her emotions.

-Sorry, sorry.- apologized, still hitting memories while I tried to get control of her body.

_Walking through the woods with Tobias, watching him get down on one knee and propose to me, er Rachel. _

I let go of the memory, no matter how tempting, Rachel would kill me if I let it continue. But, what? No one knew he'd proposed. We were only 16! How could he have...

-C'mon. Stop watching my memories. I managed better than that!- Rachel complained to me. Oddly enough, she didn't sound angry. Irritated, maybe, but not angry.

Finally, I found it – controlling her arms and legs.

I made Rachel's body climb out of the hot tub and nearly fell trying to walk around. This was weird. After a couple minutes, I managed to get it. I walked her over to the mirror to try going out and in, when the door to the room opened and Ganlor walked in.

-Rachel-

Marco was in my head, watching Tobias ask me to marry him, and Ganlor arrived early to come and get us. We weren't ready. Crap Crap CRAP!!!!! Marco looked at Ganlor through my eyes. I have no idea what kind of look was on my face, but I'm pretty sure it was surprise or fear.

-Marco, act natural or you'll blow our cover.- I yelled at him.

-I'm trying!- He said to me. "Can I help you with something?" he said in my voice.

-Yeah.- He said completely normally. But then, all of a sudden, a tail blade was at my throat. –You're coming with me!- he said, pulling a shredder from behind his back and pointing it at us/me.

He forced us along the hallway toward his quarters, just as we'd expected.

-Nervous?- I asked Marco.

-Uh, Yeah!- he said sarcastically. –I didn't get to practice this like you did!-

-Just go pretty much all the way out, hanging on to the inside of the ear canal. Maybe you'd better let go of my brain before we get in there, so I don't stumble or something that might give us away.- I tried to explain how to do it as best I could so he might manage. This was too fast.

Suddenly, I had control of my body again. I nearly tripped from the major change, but I recovered quickly.

"What is going on?" I quietly asked Ganlor. "Why are you doing this?" He didn't answer, just pushed me through the open door to his quarters and followed me in, still pointing the shredder at me. He closed the door behind him and forced me toward the cupboard. I was getting really nervous now. What if he stunned me? What if we didn't convince Ganlor that I was infested.

-Chill, Rachel. We'll pull it off!- Marco. I'd almost forgotten he was there, listening to my thoughts. It was almost . . . comforting.

-Thanks.- I calmed down, as Ganlor shoved me into the cupboard. The filter didn't go off. Huh? Marco was equally confused.

-What happened the Gleet BioFilter! . . .- Marco asked.

-No idea!- Ganlor shoved me over toward the yeerk pool and forced my body into the vice next to the pool.

-Here we go!- I thought. -Marco, be careful!-


	18. Revelations

-Rachel-

-Your ear is under water.- Marco said excitedly. –I don't _have_ to try to go out and back in because he can't see anyway!-

-OK.- I responded. –So now what? How will he know I'm infested?-

-I guess we'll have to just tell him. Remember, you're Edriss 5942, Sub-visser 52 and I'm going to be Freson 4731, Sub-visser 49- Marco replied, going over the designations we'd memorized earlier. They had been stored in Ganlor's computer.

-It's going to work!- I exclaimed to him in thoughtspeak. -We're going to pull it off!-

-Maybe- Marco said, always being realistic. –It's not over yet.- I could feel his uneasiness as I sat in the vice with my ear in the yeerk pool and Marco in my head.

-What's Ganlor's designation again?- I asked, just to be sure.

-Precor 348, Visser 47- He replied. –Must not be a very important project since he's such a low ranking . . . –

-I think you'd have time to get control by now.- I interrupted. –C'mon, let's go!- I was ready to get the show on the road, giddy almost as if we were going into a battle or something.

-Chill, Xena- Marco admonished, sounding amused. –No fighting unless it's necessary! We'll blow our cover! This is just recon.-

-So tell him already!- I said, annoyed.

-OK, OK, you're right, it's time.- he finally agreed, taking back control of my body. Then aloud in my voice he said: "I have control of my new host, Visser."

-Excellent- Ganlor responded walking over to me and releasing the vice. -Were the two agents planning anything with this trip? Any type of mission? Or was it truly just luck that the two humans we needed to infest came on this trip humans call a honeymoon?-

"It must have been luck, Visser." Marco answered. "They were merely trying to get away from the many humans of Earth for their honeymoon."

-Sounds good.- I approved. –Definitely believable.- ... Then –No, don't smile!- Instantly the smile left my face, but I think Ganlor might have seen it, even though his main eyes were to the computer...

"What is next, Visser?" Marco said in my voice.

-We will be entering the solar system of the Andalite homeworld within 2 standard hours. You must go through your host's memories and determine how best to contact War-Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Then you can meet him on the homeworld and infest him there. I have promised his body to Iniss 489 – subvisser 13. His current host is Hork-Bajir, but he prefers an Andalite host, of course. Once we have Aximili we will be able to further infiltrate the Andalite homeworld.-

I could feel the evil seeping out of him as he spoke. It reminded me of Visser 3! The arrogance he felt as he revealed the plan he thought was completely foolproof. He obviously hadn't seen the smile, though, good!

"A brilliant plan, Visser." Marco said in my voice. To me he said –Crap! This is worse than we thought. They're trying to infiltrate the Andalite homeworld! Earth won't have a chance if they succeed!-

-Yeah, _IF!_- I said confidently. -But they won't. Because we've already screwed up a major part of their plan! Nice acting, by the way. Definitely sounded like a lowly Yeerk talking to his visser. 'yes visser, no visser, brilliant visser...' Hehehe.-

-It's not over yet, Xena.- Marco said to me, a smile in his thoughtspeak. –But thanks.- I could tell he was pleased at my compliment.

Meanwhile, Ganlor continued to boast about his brilliant plan. -Yes, isn't it. And the insolent humans did not even suspect! Now we have their top government agents and can use them to infiltrate the human government back on Earth! I shall be promoted soon! Perhaps I will be Visser 46 in a few hours...-

He continued to brag about what he thought might happen and I just tuned him out. Marco kept making little comments, like "of course, visser." and stuff like that, egging him on.

Eventually, he stopped boasting and looked at the computer screen. –I must tend to the bridge.- He said. –You have one hour to infest the male human, brief Sub-visser 49 on the plan, and report back to me. Here, take this shredder. You'll need it.- He handed us a shredder and I/Marco took it.

"Yes, Visser." Marco said in my voice as Ganlor opened the doors and walked confidently out toward the bridge.

Marco ran my body back toward our quarters. Once we got there, he came out of my ear and demorphed.

-Marco-

Boy, was I glad to be human again! We sat down on the end of the bed to talk. I had no idea what to say, though. I looked at Rachel. She was looking at the shredder in her hand.

"I guess I need to take you to Ganlor's quarters and make it look like I'm infesting you." She said, holding up the gun.

"Can I see it? We do have an hour to kill." I reminded her. I'd never seen a shredder up close before.

"I guess." She said, handing it to me. Her hand brushed mine as she handed it to me. I looked down at the shredder, trying hard to ignore the tingles that went up my arm where she'd touched it.

I looked the shredder over, feigned shooting the wall a couple times, and handed it back. Rachel was just watching. She stood up, holding the shredder. "Let's get this over with!"

"What happened to 'Let's do it'? Is that suddenly getting old?" I teased.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, 'Let's do it!' if you like that better!" She said, smiling at me and pushing me toward the door. "Now, you're my prisoner, so just walk slowly to Ganlor's quarters and no one gets hurt!" She grinned fiercely.

"OK." I said, playing the part. "Just don't shoot me! I'll do anything you want!"

She basically pushed me down the hallway with the end of the shredder. We went into Ganlor's quarters and into the cupboard. After the door was closed, Rachel sat down the shredder.

"Now what?" She asked. "No one can see us, but we can't just go back out – it takes time to infest someone."

"I dunno." I said. "Did you see anything interesting in my head?" I smiled at her and raised my eyebrows, hoping she'd take the hint and elaborate on Tobias' proposal.

"No, but you did." She said looking at me.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" I asked, cautiously trying to get more information without making her mad.

"That's kind of a long story..." She sighed and looked at the floor. "But I guess we have time, if you really want to know." She looked back up at me, almost hopefully. I think she _wanted _to tell me!

"Whatever you want to tell me." I answered, trying not to look too interested. In reality, I was dying to know! We sat down on the hard metal floor and faced each other.

"OK." She smiled as she began.

_Rachel's Flashback – 3__rd__ Person (not all necessarily spoken)._

_Tobias, in human morph, walked up to Rachel, looking a little nervous. "Want to go for a walk?" He asked, feeling in his pocket. _

"_Sure" She replied smiling at him. They walked into the woods a little ways, listening to the birds chirping and holding hands, talking about the impending battle. _

_He stopped for a moment, took her other hand, and looked into her eyes. _

"_Rachel, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about for a long time." He began._

"_What is it, Tobias? Is something wrong?" She asked. They sat down together on a fallen tree._

"_No, it's just...Rachel, you know I love you, right?" He said, still looking into her eyes._

"_Yes, I love you too, Tobias." She said smiling at him, but wondering what he could possibly be getting at. _

"_Well, I ... I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I know one thing. I want to love you forever." He reached into his pocket and got down on one knee. "Rachel, will you marry me?"_

_She looked shocked for a second, before saying "Of course!" He slid the ring onto her finger, stood up and pulled her to him. He slid a hand into her hair and kissed her, gently at first, but then more passionately until all thoughts of everything but one another were gone._

_-End Flashback-_

-Marco-

"Whoa!" I said, totally wrapped up in the story.

She kinda smiled at me, looking almost embarrassed. "You can probably guess what happened after that."

I was shocked. "You mean you..." She was blushing as she nodded and looked at the floor. "But that still doesn't explain why you didn't tell anyone," I continued. "I mean, that should have been something to brag about!"

She gave me a dirty look.

"The engagement, not the ... erm ... aftermath!" I almost laughed as I struggled to find a politically correct term. She smirked.

"Do want the rest of the story or not?" She asked in mock anger. She was still smiling, though.

"Yeah," I said, and decided to keep my mouth shut until she was done.

"So an hour later we walked back toward camp. I knew I couldn't hide anything from him after that, so when he asked what Jake had talked to me about, I told him about the plan to kill Tom. Tobias came up with a better plan – we'd go talk to Toby and see if any of the free Hork-Bajir could help us out. They weren't willing to help with the battle, but since it was basically just a rescue mission, they agreed to come in and save me. That's why I'm still here." Rachel continued the story.

"So you were the ones who convinced them to help." I interjected, shocked that they'd agreed to help Rachel and Tobias.

"Yeah." She answered. "A week later, I was supposed to get my period. It never came. I got a pregnancy test and it was positive. I had no idea what to do and I certainly couldn't tell my mom. She would be so mad at me! So I hid in the valley of the free Hork-Bajir to wait until the baby came. I decided that I was going to keep the baby, even if it was difficult, because it was all I had left of Tobias.

"Toby was really nice to me and let me live with her and the other Hork-Bajir. I told Cassie where I was and she came to see me every now and then – brought me human food and such, but she wasn't allowed to tell anyone except my mom where I was.

"About 4 months later, I had gained a bunch of weight, but something felt wrong. The baby wasn't moving around anymore. I told Cassie and she said I should go to a doctor. When I went, the doctor said the baby – a girl – was dead. Now, not only had I lost Tobias, but I'd lost his baby too."

She was staring blankly at the floor while she spoke. It must have been hard for her to tell me. "That's why you didn't come back to school?" I asked gently.

"Yeah." She responded looking at me, then back at the floor. "I just didn't want people to see me like that. I didn't know if I ever wanted to come back, but Cassie finally persuaded me to come home. That made my mom happy, at least. I didn't think I'd ever be happy again."

"Wow." I said, "But Rachel, why are you telling me?" I had to know. She didn't normally tell me stuff like this. Of course, this wasn't a normal mission, and we were getting closer...

She looked up at me with a half-smile. "I ... I don't think now is a good time to explain. Ask me again later. We're running low on time." She looked distractedly around the small room.

I looked over at the yeerk pool. "You're probably right. Ganlor is probably expecting us any minute." I stood up and reached a hand down to help Rachel up. She took my hand and I pulled her up next to me. Tingles. Tingles. I let go. Can't get distracted. "Ready?" I asked.

"Let's do it." Came the reply. I couldn't help but smile.


	19. Landing

(A/N: Thanks to the reviewers, especially Zack-Cody-Dylan-Cole who has reviewed almost every chapter. I always look forward to hearing what you think of the latest chapter. New reviews totally make my day. I hope other people are reading this too, not just the three people who have reviewed so far. Oh, and I don't own the Animorphs, K?)

-Marco-

So, Rachel and the Bird-Boy were engaged. I was surprised they hadn't told anyone. I guess they didn't want to take anyone's mind off of the task at hand – defeating the Yeerks, so they'd probably planned on telling people after the last battle.

It was still a shock – I mean 16-year-olds don't normally get engaged. I suppose, people don't normally date outside of their species either, and teenagers don't normally turn into animals ... OK, so _nothing_ about the situation was normal. Maybe it shouldn't be so shocking.

And she was pregnant? She sure hadn't ever _looked_ pregnant, but I guess she waited a while before coming back into society. I didn't blame her for not coming back right away. It probably would have been embarrassing.

But why would she tell me? It obviously wasn't public knowledge, or she'd have added it to her book. She'd told Cassie, but not anyone else. Why now, all of a sudden? Was it because I had seen part of it in her memories? Or just because she kissed me, so she obviously likes me? I guess there wasn't time to contemplate that now. We were on a mission.

Rachel and I were walking back down the hall to speak to Ganlor on the bridge. We had to pretend to be controllers. I didn't think that would be too hard. I looked over at Rachel; she had a kinda goofy grin on her face and was looking at the floor as we walked. Huh?

-Rachel-

_(A/N: She is thinking at the same time as Marco)_

I told him. Whew! What a relief to finally tell someone! Marco and I really needed to talk. I knew we'd have more time later, but I was afraid I was completely going to lose control. The way he was looking at me, all tender and caring, smiling at me ... It was just ... so ... cute.

"Rachel, Rachel, Rachel." I admonished myself. "You are losing your mind. This is _Marco_ we are talking about here." I glanced over at him. We were walking down the hall toward the bridge. I quickly looked back at the floor. "Yup, I've definitely lost it. He's still cute. And a darn good kisser too." I thought remembering, and trying not to smile.

Apparently my attempt didn't work. Marco noticed. "What?" he asked grinning at me in response to seeing me smile.

"Uh, nothing." I said looking away. Now was _so_ not the time. Too much was at stake to 'get distracted' as he had put it. I focused on the task at hand as we arrived at the bridge.

"Reporting for duty, Visser." Marco said in a solemn voice.

Ganlor looked over at us. –We will be landing within the hour.- He thoughtspoke to us. -Secure your hosts' items to be taken into the human hotel on the Andalite homeworld. We must not make anyone suspicious of them. You will contact Aximili tomorrow.-

He turned toward a view-screen that displayed a map of the city we were to land near. He pointed at a spot on the map with his many-fingered blue hand. –The entrance to the pool is on the back of this scoop. Simply press your hand to the keypad and state your designation. The Gleet BioFilters have already been programmed to your DNA and Aximili's so you may take him there for infestation.-

Marco and I looked at the spot on the map. Ganlor continued his orders. –Now go prepare for landing. I have no need for you now.- He told us.

"Yes, Visser." I said, hoping I sounded as I had earlier and gave a short nod with my head. Then Marco and I hightailed it out of there back toward our quarters. Neither of us spoke until we were back there with the door closed so we were sure he wouldn't hear.

"Think we fooled him?" Marco asked raising an eyebrow at me skeptically.

I nodded and looked away. My heart was doing little flip-flops. Just looking at him was distracting. I needed to focus on something else, so I grabbed my suitcase and started pulling my clothes out of the closet to be folded. He watched for a minute and then started stuffing clothes into his suitcase. Of course, he hadn't ever really _un_packed, so he didn't have much to do. He finished and sat on the end of the bed watching me fold my clothes into the suitcase.

"So, do you want to explain why you suddenly decided to spill your guts?" He asked grinning at me, a laugh in his voice. "We have some time now..."

"I just wanted to, that's all." I said, not very sincerely, while I continued to focus on folding the clothes.

"Why?" He pressed. "You acted like there was some big explanation while we were in the yeerk pool room. Would you have even told me if I hadn't accidentally seen part of it while I was in your head?"

"No?" I said hopefully, looking at him. What was I supposed to do, tell him the truth? 'I think I'm falling in love with you, so I thought you should know what you were getting into just in case you might feel the same way about me?' Yeah, like I could ever say _that_.

"Somehow, I don't believe you." He said with a chuckle.

"Well, fine then!" I said, mockingly, standing up with my hands on my hips. "Don't believe me! See if I care!"

"Well, I won't then!" He said, grinning.

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Be that way!" We finished together, laughing.

I'd finished putting the clothes away, so I walked past him around the side of the bed to grab my pajamas from under my pillow. He turned watching me from his spot at the end of the bed.

Suddenly, he grabbed my arm, pulled me down onto the bed and started tickling me!

I couldn't stop giggling. "Stop ... Please stop ..." I breathlessly pleaded, attempting to push his fingers off of my ribs. I was laughing so hard, tears were running down my face. He was laughing too, probably at me. How did _he_ know I was ticklish?

Even as I was begging him to stop, I couldn't help but think what fun it was to laugh so hard. I thought about morphing, but I couldn't focus. Then, I had an idea. I knew it probably wasn't a very good idea, given the circumstances, but I couldn't resist.

Rather than pushing him off of me, I pulled him down on top of me, rolled him under me and kissed him all in one movement. I intended just to surprise him, make him stop tickling me and then get up, but his lips were so soft and warm, I was drawn to them. I completely forgot my intent and lost myself in his kisses.

A moment later, he gently ran his tongue around the inside of my lips, asking for entry. I opened my mouth and we found even more bliss exploring each other's mouths with our tongues. He was playing with my hair with one hand and gently running his other hand along the curve of my waist, not pushing any limits, but still putting me on Cloud 9.

He pulled away from my lips and started kissing my neck, causing new little chills to go up my spine. I sighed contentedly and giggled a little as he kissed behind my ear. Yup, I was definitely in love. I never thought it would happen again, especially with Marco. The chorus of that song came back to me just then:

_It ain't the mind that calls the shots 'round here  
When stronger powers call two bodies near  
Nothin' on Earth can interfere  
When love is what the heart wants_

I guess nothing _off of Earth_ can interfere either. Hee hee.

-Marco-

Rachel and I were making out. Kissing her was WAY more fun than tickling her. The little noises she was making were enough to make me never want to stop.

I probably should have been worrying about the mission and what we were going to do about it. But I wasn't thinking about that. The only thing on my mind was Rachel – kissing her, her ice-blue eyes, her silky golden hair, the way her waist curved in so perfectly...

But I wasn't going to push anything. I didn't want to pressure her into something she might later regret – I cared too much for her to do that. We could talk later, but in the meantime...

I had one of my hands at her waist. I pushed up the edge of her shirt so I could feel her skin. Wow, she was a smooth as silk! I pushed up her shirt a little more so I could kiss her stomach all around her belly button. She kinda sighed at that.

I pulled away and looked her in the eyes. She was lying on her back and I was beside her, leaning on my elbow and facing her. She looked so content.

She reached up and touched the side of my face with her palm. I smiled. "You know, that's how Andalites kiss?" I said.

She smiled and raised her eyebrows. "You like it?" She asked. "Or would you prefer a human kiss?" In response I leaned down to kiss her lips again. I could barely muffle my sigh – it felt that good! It was like a dream come true.

Then the fun ended. I heard the door slide open and I pulled away from Rachel long enough to see a young Andalite standing there staring at us.

I stood up quickly. "We were, uh, we were just..."

-I tapped on the door, but there was no response.- he said looking at me with one stalk eye and at Rachel with his main eyes. –I am here to help with your luggage.- He finished, walking over toward my suitcase. He didn't seem ashamed by what he had seen, or even surprised.

I looked out the door and there was a wheeled cart there, presumably for the luggage.

I glanced at Rachel who had sat up. "An Andalite bellhop? Weird. So apparently we've landed on the Andalite Homeworld?" I whispered to her. She nodded at me, looking slightly puzzled.

We watched the Andalite struggle to put our heavy suitcases on the cart and then followed him out into the hallway. He pushed the cart down the ramp onto the Andalite homeworld and then followed a path toward a building that looked very much like a hotel on Earth! Aside from the blue grass and strangely shaped trees, we could have been on Earth!

Ganlor and the other two Andalites of his crew followed us. There were a few Andalites standing along the path, watching us. He spoke to us in private thoughtspeak: -Express physical affection. The other Andalites may become suspicious if you do not.-

Well, he didn't have to tell me twice! I put my arm around Rachel and she put her head on my shoulder as we walked toward the hotel. We both smiled and waved at some of the Andalites watching. When we reached the doorway, I picked her up and carried her through it, kissing her very briefly on the lips right before we went through.

Another Andalite showed us to our room and the Andalite bellhop put our suitcases just inside the door. It was similar to our room on the ship only larger and it had a large viewscreen communicator at one end and one thing I totally wasn't expecting – a TV! I looked at it, very surprised. Well, we could play with it later, maybe.

The Andalites left and Rachel and I were alone again. Before we could have anything resembling a normal conversation, we had to debug our room. First, we had to find all the hidden microphones and cameras and disable them. We set up the hologram projector to show Rachel and I sitting on the bed, her reading a magazine, and me playing with my laptop. That way we could search the room without making anyone suspicious of what we were doing. Then we just had to plug a scrambling device into the comlink. It would prevent any electronic data from escaping the room and allow me to hack into the Andalite computer systems.

When we were satisfied that we'd sufficiently debugged the room, we turned off the hologram and sat down across from each other on the bed to talk.

"What do you think that bellhop saw?" I asked.

"I don't know. I'm not going to worry about it. What does an Andalite know about humans anyway?" Rachel responded, running a hand through her hair and leaning back on the pillows (there were about 20 of them on the huge king-sized bed!). "We've got other things to worry about right now."

"But what if he tells Ganlor?" I pressed. "If Ganlor finds out we were 'expressing physical affection,' he might start to doubt whether we are actually infested."

"Maybe," She replied, sighing heavily, "But if he does, there's nothing we can do about it now."

"OK," I said. She was right. But I was still a little worried about it.


	20. Questions

The Animorphs and Ax are KA Applegate's creations. Ganlor was created by Weird Blondy. Don't sue me for borrowing the characters, ok? thanks. (The new Andalites are my own characters, though!)

* * *

-3RD Person-

A very young Andalite went up to Ganlor - the same Andalite youth who carried Rachel and Marco's bags into their room. –Ganlor-falo, can I ask you a question?- he asked.

_(A/N: adding 'falo' after an Andalite name is a term of endearment and respect reserved for Andalite grandfathers. This was not in the books anywhere, I just made it up)_

-Just a millisecond Kyger.- Ganlor responded, attempting to make his voice kind. –I'm busy right now.-

Ganlor stood in front of a large computer, attempting to find the location of War-Prince Aximili. The sensors indicated he was not in his scoop, as expected. After a few minutes of poking buttons on the computer screen, he found what he was looking for and began muttering to himself. –So Aximili was sent out on a top-secret mission this morning. I will have to commandeer a ship for the subvissers to intercept his. This makes the plan much more tedious and complicated.- He completely forgot about the young Andalite standing beside him.

Kyger, after waiting close to 10 Andalite minutes, reminded Ganlor that he was there. –Ganlor-falo-

Ganlor looked at the young Andalite with an expression of contempt and Kyger shuddered. Ganlor-falo had never looked at him like that before and he was afraid. Ganlor tersely responded –I'm busy Kyger. Go away.- He returned to the computer and resumed muttering to himself, searching for a ship and any hints of what might have been Aximili's mission.

Kyger sadly walked away, wondering what could have possibly made Ganlor-falo act that way. It had been his parents' idea to allow him to work and learn more about the aliens. Ganlor-falo had seemed excited by the idea at the time, but most recently he seemed very distant, like Kyger was a burden. He was just curious to know what the slit in the bottom of the alien's faces was for and why they might be pressing those parts together. He was supposed to be learning about the aliens! Then he had a happy thought. Perhaps his shorm, Melea knew what the slit was for. She knew a lot of things about aliens... Kyger pranced off, looking forward to conversing with his friend.

Meanwhile, Ganlor found a ship that he thought he would be able to get for the two subvissers. He did not know where Aximili was sent, yet. He would have to speak with some other Andalites before sending the subvissers on their newest mission. He opened up a viewscreen communicator to contact the subvissers. They would have to wait until he got more information before moving on.

* * *

-Rachel-

"So we need a plan." I said, staring at the bedspread. Looking at Marco was too distracting. We were alone together – that in itself was distracting. Not to mention the fact that all I could think about was kissing him, his adorable smile, his muscular chest, all too visible through his morphing suit... How were we ever going to finish this mission? I couldn't even think straight.

"Yeah." Marco said. I glanced at him and then back at the bedspread. He was staring at the wall. I guess he couldn't focus while looking at me either. That was a happy thought. How could we come up with a plan like this? I got up and started pacing. It was easier than holding still.

I stopped pacing for a moment and looked over at Marco. He was watching me, so I started pacing again and thinking aloud.

"Well, we need to contact Ax and warn him about the Yeerks here and about Ganlor. He might have some idea about what to do about them. Obviously the yeerks can't just attack the Andalite homeworld – we took out most of their forces a few years ago and the Andalites are far more powerful than they ever were." I said, now focused on the project at hand. I looked over at Marco. He looked away. Yeah, that was probably the best thing for now. We needed to stay focused.

"Right," Marco said. "So if we expose the Yeerks to the Andalites, they would easily be able to stop them. But then, why are they even trying when they know they're doomed to fail? I don't get it." He shook his head staring at the floor, then looked up at me.

The communicator on the other side of the room beeped. We had a call coming in. I looked at Marco.

"I'll get it." He said, getting up and walking over to it. I followed him and watched as he pressed the button to accept the call.

Ganlor's face appeared on the screen -Have you prevented communications from being read by third parties?- he asked, obviously not wanting anyone to know about the transmission.

"Yes, Visser." Marco responded, sounding very convincing. "No one can be picking up this transmission."

'Except we're taping it.' I thought, 'so we'll have proof that Yeerks truly are attempting to infiltrate the Andalite homeworld.'

-Excellent.- he responded without emotion. –I have determined that Aximili is not on this planet. He has been sent on a mission. I will need more time to determine his location so that you may intercept his ship. Await orders in your room.-

The screen went blank.

Great. He didn't say anything that might suggest he was a Yeerk. We were going to have to get more proof than that. I looked over at Marco and sighed. "Well that wasn't very helpful, was it?"

"No." he replied shaking his head. "If _he_ doesn't even know where Ax is, how are _we_ supposed to find him? This is just getting more and more complicated."

I started pacing. I finally had gotten focused on the mission, but I had no idea what we were going to do about this new problem.

* * *

-3RD Person –

Kyger was heading to his shorm's scoop. He arrived there and asked Melea's parents where she was.

-Out in the meadow, feeding.- they said. So Kyger went out into the meadow to see his friend.

- Kyger!- Melea exclaimed when she saw him. –How are you?-

-I am well, thank you, but I have some questions, Melea.- Kyger said excitedly. –Do you know anything about the aliens called humans?-

Melea thought for a moment. –I know a little, but only what my brother Aximili has told me. What do you want to know?-

-What are the slits in the bottom's of their faces for?- Kyger asked, hopefully.

-They are called mouths. They use them for feeding!- Melea said proudly. –Aximili was always talking about the new sense they have in the mouth – taste! The humans send these things called Krispy Kremes and Cinnamon buns here for Andalites to experience.-

-Krispy Kremes? Cinnamon buns?- Kyger asked curiously. –What do you do with them?-

-You morph a human so you have a mouth, then you place the Krispy Kremes or cinnamon buns in the mouth!- Melea explained excitedly. –But my parents tell me it is too strong of a sense for me to try right now. I wanted to, especially after Aximili described it, but my parents don't think I could control the human morph. Maybe someday they will let me.- She sounded dejected about it.

-They do other things with their mouths too, but I am not sure why.- Kyger said. –I saw two of the humans pressing the mouths together. Why do they do that?-

-Aximili mentioned that before, but I forgot what he said.- Melea said.

–Maybe we can go ask him?- Kyger asked.

-No.- Melea said dejectedly. –He was just sent on a secret mission and my parent's wouldn't let me bother him. . . . But we could go ask the humans.- she tentatively suggested. –I bet they could tell us all kinds of stuff!-

-You don't think they'd be offended?- Kyger asked.

-Why would they?- answered Melea, looking Kyger in the eyes. –It's just a question.-

-OK.- Kyger said. –Let's go!-

The two excited Andalite youths ran back to the hotel where the humans were staying.

-Here is where I put their bags earlier,- Kyger said. –Lets call them to the door!-

-Greetings human aliens!- he said in open thoughtspeak. –We have come to ask you a question about your species. Will you open the door and converse with us?-

Then in private thoughtspeak to Melea, he said –How was that? Do you think they'll open the door?-

-It was fine.- She assured him.

* * *

-Marco-

I sat down on the bed and watched Rachel pacing for a minute, trying to come up with a suggestion when I heard thoughtspeak.

--Greetings human aliens! We have come to ask you a question about your species. Will you open the door and converse with us?-

Huh?

* * *

I will finish this eventually...hopefully. I'm sorry it took so long for this to get out, but I couldn't figure out what to do next. If you have an idea of how to continue, I would be most grateful for the suggestions.

I have heard that getting lots of reviews helps with writer's block. If anyone out there cares and wants to help cure my writers block, please review!

I know that at least one person is reading this. Is anyone else? What is turning people off to this story? Tell me, I can probably fix it! In the meantime, I will try to start the next chapter which will hopefully be a little longer.

If you don't feel like reviewing or would prefer to have a conversation with me, my AIM screenname is chemkim00.

Thanks!

* * *


	21. Answers

**A/N: Thanks so much to Faith360, emi07. and Zack-Cody-Dylan-Cole for your reviews and suggestions. I appreciate them!  
Oh, and I don't own the Animorphs, so don't sue me, ok? **

* * *

_-Marco-_

I looked over at Rachel after hearing the thoughtspeak. "Did you hear that?" She asked in a whisper.

I nodded. "It has to be some sort of trick, right?" I whispered so the Andalites wouldn't hear, if they even were Andalites and not controllers.

She shook her head, thinking.

I thought about it for a minute. I couldn't come up with a way it could be a trick. Ganlor thought we were infested and he'd just finished calling us. The Andalites thought we were here on our honeymoon, so they wouldn't be suspicious either.

"There's no reason it would be a trick." Rachel said, looking at me. "Let's talk to them – maybe they'll be helpful."

I was still a little wary. Andalites didn't usually just walk up to humans to chat, did they? Still, I couldn't come up with a reason not to open the door, so I walked over, glanced back worriedly at Rachel, and pulled the door open.

There, standing outside our door, were two very young Andalites. One looked pretty familiar – I think it was the same one who carried our bags. The other I didn't recognize, but it appeared to be a female – she was smaller, her frame slightly more delicate and her tailblade much smaller than the first. I glanced back at Rachel. She looked confused. I was too. Why were these Andalites standing at our door?

-Humans!- The male Andalite said, -I am Kyger and this is Melea.- At this point he gestured toward the female Andalite.

I reached up and scratched my head. "Um, do you want to come in?" I asked, unsure how to continue.

The Andalites looked at one another and Melea said -Yes.- so I opened the door wider and backed into the room to let them in. I closed the door behind them and Rachel got right to the point. "So what do you want to know? I won't guarantee we'll have an answer, but we can try to help you out."

I grinned at Rachel. She must have been thinking the same thing as me - might as well get this over with, right?

-Well,- Kyger began, -I am supposed to be learning about humans and that is why I am working for this alien hotel. Ganlor-falo suggested it when he started working here, but he didn't want to answer my question. I would like to know, you have a slit in the bottom of your face that is called a ... um ... -

-Mouth- Melea gently filled in the word for him, smiling at Kyger in that strange way they seem to do with just their eyes. She seemed to be slightly older than him, despite her small size.

-Mouth, right, I forgot.- Kyger said, sounding embarrassed. –Why do you press your mouths together? Melea said you use them for feeding, so are you exchanging food?-

Rachel turned a little red, but I just smiled and tried to politely explain. "No, we weren't exchanging food. It's called kissing..." I began.

-Kissing!- Melea interrupted suddenly, -That is what Aximili said it was called!-

Rachel and I both stared at her. "Ax?" Rachel said. "You know Ax?"

-Ax?- Melea said confused.

"Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill." I said. "He was our friend on Earth during the Yeerk war there."

-Yes, of course I know him.- Melea said confusedly. –He is my brother.-

I was pretty surprised at our luck. Well, hello opportunity. Maybe Melea knew how to contact Ax! I looked over at Rachel and she looked like she was thinking the same thing. Before either of us could say anything, though, Kyger broke in.

-What is kissing for? Why do you do it?-

"Um, well ... " I said, trying to decide how to explain it. I looked down at the ground, trying to decide how to explain kissing to the two very young Andalites who probably hadn't even heard of the Andalite version of kissing before, well, maybe they had. "Have you ever seen two Andalites stroking each others faces with their hands?" I asked Kyger.

-Yeah.- Melea said. –My parents do it sometimes.-

-Mine do not.- Kyger replied. –Why do your parents do that, Melea?-

-Because they are mates.- She said matter-of-factly.

-But my parents are mates too, why do they not stroke each other's faces?- Kyger complained. –That can not be the only reason they do it!-

Oops, this wasn't really going how I had planned, but at least they had the basic idea. "Humans kiss by pressing their mouths together, like Andalites kiss by stroking each others faces. The reason for it varies depending on the humans doing it."

-Why were you kissing? Are you mates?- Kyger asking innocently.

I looked at Rachel, who'd just been listening up until now. I didn't know what to say. If I said it was just fun, Rachel would be hurt. If I said it was because I care about her, I could be setting myself up to get hurt.

Finally, Rachel decided to answer. "Some humans kiss for fun, others because they love each other, and others because they want to show they care but don't know how to say it out loud."

-You did not answer my question.- Kyger said pointedly.

"I know." Rachel said. "That is a very personal question and you shouldn't be asking it." Then she turned away from Kyger toward Melea. "So Melea, Ax is your brother. Do you know how we can contact him?"

I watched Kyger turn his head toward the ground, looking sad. I think she'd hurt his feelings. Oops. Maybe I could make it up to him later. In the meantime, we needed to contact Ax. I looked over at Melea who was obviously thinking hard.

–Yes, but there is a problem. You see, he was sent on a mission just today and we do not know when he will be back.- Melea finally responded.

"Yeah, we know." I said, eager to get this over with. "But can you contact him anyway? Or do you know where he was sent? It's urgent that we talk to him very soon!"

Melea looked a little startled by my insistence. –I am not supposed to tell anyone where he was sent, that is top secret. But I suppose since it is important, we can contact him.- She scanned the room with her stalk eyes while meeting my gaze with her main eyes. –You have a view screen communicator over there, shall I attempt to send Aximili a message?-

I looked over at Rachel and grinned. Yup, we were thinking the same thing: _Perfect!_ "Yes, of course." she said grinning back at me. "Let us know when he responds."

Melea walked up to the console and Kyger followed her. I think they were using private thoughtspeak – probably talking about us. Oh well, hopefully we'd be in contact with Ax soon to warn him about the impending Yeerk infiltration.

* * *

**Back on Earth . . . **

_-Tobias-_

After flying through a large number of open meadows and finding them already occupied, it was almost sundown and I was very hungry. I knew Cassie would have given me all the food I needed, but I had one more chance to look. I found the small apparently unoccupied meadow and peered down at the ground in search of prey. Just as a precaution, I made a wide circle around the small meadow, making sure no other hawks or birds of prey were already there. I saw none, so when a small field mouse poked its head out of its hole and then hopped out toward a seed on the ground, I dove at it.

What I didn't see was the peregrine falcon above me, watching me steal its prey. A second before I was about to hit the mouse, I noticed the shadow on the ground. The falcon was attacking me! I pulled up just in time to avoid the attack, losing my mouse in the process. The peregrine falcon followed me as I flew at top speed back toward Cassie's barn. He was right on my tail and I was getting tired – I hadn't eaten all day and that made it very hard to pump my wings against the cool dead air of the evening. Once I was out of his meadow, he stopped chasing me and left me alone and exhausted.

As I slowly made my way back toward Cassie's barn, I thought about the cold dead mice I would be eating for dinner. The hawk didn't like them much, but it had been living on them for several years. Why not continue? My meadow was occupied now and so were all the meadows in the area. There seemed to be no place for me, except as a pet in Cassie's barn. It was depressing. Maybe she and Jake would let me come in for a human dinner that night, just for a change.

After a half hour of difficult flying with no thermals, I reached Cassie's barn, thoroughly exhausted. She was still there, cleaning out the cage of a raccoon with a broken leg. I perched in the hayloft and thought-spoke to her. –Hi Cassie.-

She lifted her head and scanned the rafters, until her eyes settled on me. "Hey Tobias." She said. "Any luck with the hunting today?"

-No.- I said sadly. –There just doesn't seem to be a place for me to hunt. And I'm not really up to fighting another bird for a meadow. Do you mind...-

"Of course not." She said shaking her head. She went over and got two mice from the freezer and popped them into the microwave to thaw. "Just a couple minutes." She said as she went back to the raccoon's cage.

She always seemed to know when I didn't feel like talking. It was embarrassing what had happened today. And it wasn't my first failure. I had only managed to catch one small mouse since getting my wing back. I was just about ready to give up.

I watched her work since I had nothing else to do, wondering what I should be doing with my life, if you could even call it that. I was a human living as a very old hawk. Some life.

Rachel would have said I should morph human permanently, and I would have, but that was before, when she and I were planning on being together after the war. What now? I couldn't change what had happened. She'd moved on when she thought I was dead. I guess I had to do the same, right? I knew I didn't want to move on as she had – date other people or anything like that. But maybe I could help Cassie with the animals for a few hours a day or go help out at the Raptor Rehab Center where I was a pet for so long. I knew a lot about birds after being one for so long – maybe ...

I heard the microwave beep, so I flew down to the floor to eat my dinner. Cassie pulled them out and sat them on the floor; nodding at me before returning to the cages she'd been cleaning. –Thanks.- I said as I began to eat the mice. When I was finished, I flew back up to the hayloft to clean up. While I was preening, I started talking to Cassie again.

-So, I was wondering, could I join you and Jake for dinner tonight? I'd like to talk to you, if that's ok- I hoped I wasn't intruding, but she'd always been nice to me before.

She didn't look up from the squirrel's cage she was cleaning as she answered me: "Well, we're just having macaroni and cheese, but if you want to come, you know you're always welcome, Tobias."

-Thanks.- I said, continuing to preen. When I was finished, I flew down to the floor and began to morph to human. I almost wanted to find a mirror – the Ellimist had caused my human morph to age with time on Earth, so I was about ... 24, I guess. Wow. So much time passed. As a human in my old bike shorts and T-shirt, I walked over to the rack on the wall and pulled on a pair of overalls, rubber boots and a flannel shirt that Cassie kept there for Jake. They were a little too big, but oh well. It was better than nothing.

I picked up a broom and started to sweep the floor for Cassie. She turned to look at me in surprise.

"What?" I said, grinning, "I can't help out a little?"

"Fine with me!" She replied smiling back.

We worked in silence until I finished the floor and dumped the dustpan in trash. "Now what?" I asked.

"Well," Cassie paused, looking around at the very organized barn full of animals. "Just let me finish up with this cage and you can help me feed and water the animals before dinner."

"OK." I said, trying to be helpful. I was proud of my decision. I was going to help out – earn my keep at the very least. Maybe if I spent 2 hours at a time as a human, I would get used to it and be ready to make the change permanent. I knew I wasn't ready yet, but hopefully it wouldn't take too long to adjust...

* * *

** A/N: That's it for now. More to come soon, I hope. I love reviews, so if you have time, please tell me what you think!**


	22. Communication

**OK, first I just want to apologize for not updating sooner. I planned on updating again before Christmas, but everything got crazy-busy and I didn't end up having time... and then after New Years, I sort of forgot where I was going with the mission part. But I can't forget anymore – I have an outline from here to the end! So fear not, it will be finished!!!!! **

**Many thanks to star29818, Zack-Cody-Dylan-Cole, emi07, and Faith360 for your reviews. I hope that this chapter fulfills your expectations. Again, very sorry for the long delay. **

**Disclaimer: KA Applegate owns the Animorphs but, for what it's worth, ****I**** created Melea and Kyger!**

* * *

**On the Andalite Homeworld...**

_-Rachel-_

Oh boy. Talk about your uncomfortable conversation. Trying to explain human kissing to aliens? And now those little blue Andalites were playing with the computer, squinting at one another with their stalk eyes and probably talking about us in private thoughtspeak. I hoped I hadn't offended them, but we really needed to get down to business.

I looked over at Marco. He had picked up his laptop and was sitting crosslegged on the bed with it in front of him. I couldn't help but smile at him - he looked so cute sitting there, squinting at the screen and punching keys – so I went over and climbed on the bed next to him and kissed him on the cheek. He flashed me a grin and we both jumped at the loud BEEP that came from the computer in the corner.

We both looked over and a very familiar image came on the screen – Ax!

Melea looked at us with a stalk eye and said to us: -I have managed to contact Aximili.-

-Melea,- Ax said sounding worried, -Why have you contacted me? Is this an emergency?-

I stood up quickly and walked toward the computer screen with Marco right behind me. "Yes," I said in a clear voice. "It is an emergency."

Ax's eyes went wide. –...Rachel?- He said in a shocked voice. –Why are you on the Andalite Homeworld?-

Marco appeared next to me. "We need your help." he said simply.

It occurred to me just then that we couldn't explain our situation with Kyger and Melea there, so I winked at Marco and said: "Yeah, but we can't tell you all the details here. We need to meet with you to speak in private."

-I do not wish to disclose my location over an unsecured connection.- Ax said uncertainly.

"This is about as secure as it can get, Ax-man." Marco said. "We disabled all the cameras and microphones and have been jamming the signal through here since we arrived."

-Alright then.- Ax said, –I am in transit to the planet Leera and will be arriving there in the next two days. I cannot disclose the purpose of my mission at this time, only that it is very important in the war against the yeerks.-

"We understand." I said speaking for Marco and I.

-Do you have a plan yet?- Ax asked.

Marco and I looked at one another, thinking. I bit my lip and looked down, "Um, well..." I said. We hadn't gotten that far. "We're probably going to have access to a ship soon, and we'll probably be contacting you along with an Andalite named Ganlor."

-Ganlor...- Ax said thoughtfully, –I believe I have met him before. He is working with you, I presume?-

"Not exactly." Marco said looking at me and raising an eyebrow. I wished we'd discussed what we were going to say earlier since we obviously couldn't say anything bad about Ganlor in front of Kyger.

"Just don't believe everything we tell you in that conversation, ok?" I said. "Act like you believe everything, and we'll contact you later with the real plans."

-Do you need my contact information?- Ax asked.

"That would be helpful." Marco said.

-OK.- Ax said solemnly. –I am transmitting the contact codes into your computer now.-

"Thanks." I said.

-I shall be expecting your calls.- Ax said. –Is there anything else we need to discuss at this time?-

Marco and I looked at each other, then back at the screen. "I don't think so." Marco said, speaking for both of us.

-Alright then. Goodbye my friends.- Ax said.

"Talk to you later, Ax-man." Marco said.

"Yeah, Bye." I added.

The connection cut out then, leaving the screen a dark gray.

"Melea?" Marco asked turning around to look at her.

-Yes?-

"Thanks."

-You are welcome. And thank you for telling us about humans.- Melea said.

"You're welcome." I said smiling at them and sending a questioning look at Marco. We needed to get them to leave so we could discuss the next steps in the mission.

"So, we need to get some stuff done around here." Marco began.

"Yeah," I added, nodding.

-But I have more questions!- whined Kyger.

"Maybe we can talk to you more later?" I suggested.

-OK, I guess.- Kyger said dejectedly as he and Melea walked toward the door.

-How about a game of driftball?- Melea suggested. –We can go find Belin and Ralnora...-

-Yeah!- exclaimed Kyger trotting out the door. –See you aliens later!- he shouted as he ran toward a nearby field with Melea close behind.

"Good," I whispered, watching them go. "Melea managed to distract him for a while." I looked over at Marco. He gestured me to come into the room, so I followed him. "So..." I questioned, wondering what he was up to.

"So, we need to figure out what to do, right?" He answered.

"Yeah," I said looking at him questioningly, "You've got a plan?"

"Nope." He said, grinning and running a hand through his short dark hair, "Just let me think for a minute." He closed his eyes and I looked at the floor. I couldn't just come up with a plan like that. We needed to talk it out.

"Poker?" I suggested. "Seems like we always come up with the best plans playing cards..."

He gave a quiet chuckle and nodded. "I'll get the chips."

We set up the game without speaking, pushing the desk into the middle of the room and pulling up two chairs on either side of it, then started discussing the case again.

"So, what do we know so far?" Marco asked, glancing at his two cards and rapping his knuckles on the desk to signify he was checking (not placing a bet).

"Well," I said discarding one and flipping up three cards onto the desk. "We're supposedly infested and Ganlor expects us to infest Ax when we somehow get to meet with him. So..."

We went through a number of possible scenarios while playing Texas Hold 'Em poker and finally decided that we would try to meet with Ax on Leera. We assumed Ganlor would figure out where Ax was headed and want us to just go there rather than us trying to meet him in transit. A few hours and about 30 hands of poker later, the viewscreen beeped again. Marco walked over and turned it on. Ganlor appeared on the screen.

"Hello, Visser." Marco said solemnly. I walked up next to him. "Good afternoon, Visser." I said trying to keep any emotion out of my voice.

-I have located a ship for your use. I will await your presence at the docking bay – meet me there at 19:00 hours. I will tell you exactly what the plan will be when you arrive. Bring your suitcases. If you are asked where you are going, tell them that I am taking you on a short tour of our moons as part of your trip. It should not arouse suspicion with anyone.- Ganlor explained all at once. We just stood there listening.

-Do you understand?- Ganlor asked in a fearsome voice.

"Yes Visser." We said together.

-Good. Make sure you are not late. Be there at precisely 19:00 hours.- Ganlor finished and the screen went black.

I looked at Marco and shook my head. "Well, that was about what we expected." I said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Marco grinned. "Yup." He looked over at the weird clock on the wall. It had 14 hours on it, rather than 12 like on Earth clocks. The short hand currently pointed between the 3 and 4 and the long hand pointed to the 12. All the clocks on the ship were digital and read the time on Earth in New York, probably for the benefit of the humans on board. "So, do you suppose that 19:00 hours is about 5pm, then?" he asked.

I looked over at the clock. "Yeah, probably." I said. "I guess now all we have to do is wait."

"You know, I never realized what Ax was talking about when he kept saying_our_ hours and minutes." Marco began. "Hours and minutes are so different here, it's amazing he was even able to figure out how long our minutes and hours were!"

I nodded agreeing and looked at the floor. A lot was riding on this mission. Almost as much as was riding on us when we were kids.

So Marco and I went back to the poker game and discussed how we were going to convince Ganlor we needed to go to Leera alone and what we were going to say to him when we met. It wasn't too hard to decide – we just needed to make sure the cover story sounded believable to a yeerk.

* * *

**Back on Earth...**

_-Tobias-_

We fed all the animals and then walked up the hill toward Cassie's house. It was a really big house, I noticed now that I was human. The old farmhouse was white, with a covered wooden porch on the back and blue shutters around the windows.

We went inside and Cassie stopped just inside the door to take off her mud-and-poop-covered boots. I looked down and realized the ones I was wearing were pretty gross too. I stepped out of them and onto the hardwood floor near the door, and then looked at Cassie.

She looked at me and almost laughed, "Hang on." She said, "I'll see if I can find you some clothes that might fit a little better. Those are awfully baggy." She ran off down the hallway and I stood there, looking at the pictures on the wall: a wedding picture of Cassie and Jake – they looked so happy in that one, I was glad they had worked out their problems.

I walked down the hallway slowly, stopping to look at each picture. Some were newer, some were older – Cassie graduating from vet school, Jake with a bunch of guys who looked like they were in the military, high school graduation with Cassie, Jake, Marco and Rachel all in caps and gowns. And a magazine cover – framed with a tiger, a wolf, a gorilla and a grizzly bear on the front. "Heroes," the caption read, "5 teenagers save the world." And I had missed it.

It sort of hit me just then, as I continued to look at the fading pictures, all that I had missed. I had missed my childhood, high school, and the years many people spend in college. I still had a life, though, and I knew that I needed to figure out how I wanted to live it. _Alone._ I remembered. _I'm going to be alone._ Well, that wasn't new to me. I'd been alone most of my life, until I met Rachel and the rest of the Animorphs. Maybe I could make some new friends if I started working somewhere. _And sacrifice my wings? Permanently? _I didn't know if I could do that. I didn't know if I had a good enough reason to do that.

I stopped in front of a picture of Cassie, Rachel, and Marco. They were at some party, it looked like, and Rachel was holding up a book in front of her as Cassie and Marco leaned in on either side with big cheesy grins on their faces. Rachel looked really excited, so I moved closer to the picture to get a better look. It looked like the book had a picture of a bird on the front - I wondered what it was?

A moment later, Cassie came back out of a room down the hall holding some clothes in her hands. She walked up to me and looked over my shoulder at the picture. "Oh!" She exclaimed. "I never showed you Rachel's book!"

I was confused, though I'm sure it didn't show up on my face. "Rachel wrote a book?" I turned my head from the picture to look at her.

"Yup!" Cassie said grinning. "A pretty good book, too! Here." She said handing me the clothes, "Go in the bathroom and put these on while I see if I can find the book for you." She grinned at me as she turned around and walked toward the kitchen. I went into the bathroom, as she'd requested, and quickly demorphed and remorphed to make sure I wouldn't run out of time. Then I put on the clothes – jeans and a t-shirt. They fit a lot better than the other ones.

After I changed, I came out and Cassie handed me a book. I looked down at it. The title was Xena and the Hawk. I wonder where that came from? "You can go in the living room and talk to Jake or watch TV or whatever. I'll let you know when dinner is ready." Cassie said, startling me out of my reverie.

"OK." I said feeling almost nervous as I and turned toward the living room where Jake was watching a football game on TV. I sat down on the couch there and looked at Jake.

"So." I said, unsure what to say.

"So." He said, nodding to acknowledge my presence. His eyes were still glued to the TV, though, so I didn't think he wanted to chat. Oh well, I had a book in my lap that Rachel had written. I scanned the cover. "Xena and the Hawk" was printed in scrawling script above the photograph of Rachel with a red-tailed hawk perched on her arm. It was a nice picture, I guess.

I opened up the book, the cover cracking a little as I turned to the first printed page:

_Xena and the Hawk  
By Rachel Berenson_

_This book is dedicated to my first and only love, Tobias Fangor._

Well, that was sweet, I guess. But obviously the "only" part had changed quite a bit since it was published.

_I would also like to thank Marco Bentle for his friendship and encouragement.  
Without him, this story might never have been published. _

Huh. I wasn't sure what to think about that. I guess I should have been happy for her that she wasn't alone, but all I felt was betrayal. Like she didn't have the right to be happy or something. That couldn't be right. I wasn't sure what to think, but I didn't want to continue dwelling on it, so I turned the page to the first chapter. "Elfangor" it was called. I began to read the story of how we had met at school, then again later at the arcade and stumbled upon Elfangor's ship crash-landing in the abandoned construction site. It was interesting to see it all from Rachel's perspective.

I got lost in the story until, probably about 15 minutes later, Cassie called Jake and I for dinner. We went into their dining room and sat down to eat. The conversation wasn't really very interesting, but after a while, I mentioned my idea about helping with the animals. They seemed to think it was a good idea, so we agreed that for about 2 hours a day, I would help Cassie in the barn with the animals.

I also mentioned that I really wanted to talk to Ax. Jake said he had equipment for communicating with Andalites as part of his job, so he offered to let me go to work with him the next day and try to contact Ax on the Andalite Homeworld.

We finished up dinner after that and I demorphed and went out to the barn to sleep. The next morning I got up and Cassie gave me a couple more mice. Then I morphed to human, put on the clothes I'd been wearing the day before and met Jake at his BMW to go to work with him.

"So, you got a BMW, eh?" I said, trying to make conversation. "I guess this job must pay well."

"Not really." Jake said glancing down and changing the song on the CD player, "But we got paid really well for doing talk-shows and commercials after the war ended and we haven't really run out of money from that yet. Of course, Cassie gave most of hers to charity and paid for her veterinary degree, but mine is still in the bank, waiting to be spent."

"Oh." I said, not sure what to say to that. "So, do you think we'll be able to contact Ax today?"

"Don't know." He answered. "We'll just have to see."

I wasn't sure what else to say, so I just kept silent the rest of the trip. We got there and Jake walked straight up to what looked like a computer built into the side of a wall, with a bunch of buttons below it.

I guessed it was some sort of video communicator, like the miniature one Ax used to communicate with the Andalite Homeworld during the Yeerk war.

Jake started pushing buttons on it and eventually the face of an Andalite showed up on the screen. I didn't say anything, but Jake did. "Commander Jake Berenson of Earth speaking." He said. "I am trying to contact Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Will you connect us with his scoop?"

I looked at him in surprise. Commander? Wow. Well, hopefully that would get the Andalite's attention.

The Andalite didn't look at all impressed, though. -Why do you need to converse with him?-

"A friend of his, Tobias Fangor, would like to speak with him." Jake responded calmly.

-Does this involve business or is it merely a _personal_ call?- the Andalite sneered.

"It is a personal call." I said, speaking for the first time.

–You do realize, _Commander_, that War-prince Aximili has many things to do that are far more important than speaking with _humans_.- he haughtily answered, drawing out the word 'humans' as if it disgusted him.

"I believe that is his decision to make, not yours. Will you put us through to his scoop or do I need to speak with your superior?" Jake said, sounding a bit put off by the Andalite's arrogance.

-I will patch you through.- He said finally, the screen blanking out for a minute.

I looked at Jake. "Are they always that friendly?" I asked sarcastically.

"No, that guy was really rude. Most of the Andalites I've spoken with are a lot more polite." He answered shaking his head disgustedly. The screen flashed again and we both looked back at it. A different Andalite appeared on the screen. It looked like an older female, though, definitely not Ax.

"Um, hello?" I said to the image.

-Greetings.- the Andalite female said. –I don't get many calls from humans, what is the purpose of your call?- Her thoughtspeak was quiet and to-the-point.

"We want to talk to Ax." I said without thinking.

-Who?- she asked, waving her stalk eyes in puzzlement.

"He means Aximili." Jake broke in, flashing me a look that said 'let me do the talking'. So I kept my mouth shut.

-Oh!- she said excitedly. –Aximili! ... But you can't talk to him now! He's just been sent on another mission. He's always doing that – traveling around, doing whatever he can for the military and such. I am so sorry you called at such an inopportune time – he just left this morning!-

"Oh." I said. I was really bummed. I wanted to talk to Ax!

"Well, can we call him on his ship?" Jake asked.

-No, it's top secret.- She answered. –We aren't allowed to tell anyone where he was sent. We aren't even supposed to call him unless it is an emergency.- Then a loud "CLOMP! CLOMP! noise came through the speaker and she glanced behind her with one stalk eye. –I must leave. Someone is here. I am sorry about Aximili.- With that, she turned around and walked toward the other side of the room. I could still see her as she faced a small Andalite who had just come into the room. We couldn't hear their conversation, though, so I assumed she wasn't going to return. I glanced over at Jake who sighed and turned the communicator off.

"Well, I guess that's it, then." he said, "Think you can wait to talk to Ax for another week? We can try again then and maybe he'll be back."

"OK." I replied, feeling very disappointed. "I guess I'll go now."

"Alright." Jake said nodding. "Do you need a ride?"

"No." I said. "I'll fly. I need some time to think anyway." I started to demorph.

He nodded in understanding. "Ok. I'll see you tonight, then?"

-Yeah.- I said, now more hawk than human. –Tonight.- Jake went and opened the door for me, and as I flew out and the door closed behind me, I could see him picking up the clothes I'd shed when I morphed.

It was a beautiful sunny day, albeit a little cold, but I was looking forward to the flight to clear my head, so I found a thermal and rode it up into the clouds, heading back toward Cassie's barn.

* * *

**I have the next chapter started already because I had to cut this one down a bit – it was really getting too long.  
Thanks for reading and if you have time, please tell me what you think!**

* * *


	23. Suspicions

**Thanks to my reviewers ****digitalmonster911****, ****Zack-Cody-Dylan-Cole****, ****Andalite Angel****, ****Faith360****, and ****star29818**** who have actually continued reading, despite my lack of consistent updates. I apologize. My job is very busy now and I have little time to write anymore. I plan to finish this story, really I do. Please be patient. And KA Applegate created the Animorphs, not me. I am just borrowing the characters, so don't sue me, ok?**

**On the Andalite Homeworld...**

_-3__rd__ Person-_

One Andalite hour later, Kyger and Melea had finished their game of driftball and were headed back toward their scoops. As they were doing so, they passed Ganlor who was working at a computer. Kyger saw it and commented to Melea –It looks like Ganlor is reserving a space shuttle. I wonder what for? He just got here this morning.-

-I do not know.- said Melea. –You can ask…-

-OK.- Said Kyger walking toward Ganlor.

-Ganlor-falo?- Kyger said quietly.

-What do you want?- Ganlor sneered at him, suggesting he didn't want to be bothered.

Kyger hesitated, but decided to ask anyway –Um…I was just wondering, um… why you were … reserving a space shuttle. I mean, you just got back!-

-That's none of your concern. Leave me alone.- Ganlor replied sharply, turning back to his computer and typing rapidly with his many-fingered hands. –What a stupid little Andalite.- He thought to himself as he made his reservations. –Everything will be much better when this plan succeeds and we have control of this planet.-

Kyger walked off with Melea, confused.

–Melea?- he asked glancing back over at Ganlor-falo with a stalk eye.

-Yes Kyger?-

-I think something is wrong with Ganlor-falo.-

-What could be wrong with him?- She answered. –He's probably just having a bad day.-

-We could find out…- Kyger suggested.

-How?-

-We could spy on him and see what he is _really_ doing.- He said, now excited about his idea.

-But we'd get in trouble.- She said logically.

-Only if we got caught.- Kyger said with a hint of excitement at doing something forbidden.

-I don't know, Kyger...- Melea said hesitantly.

–We _won't_ get caught.- pressed Kyger. –C'mon, Let's follow him and see what he's doing!-

-Alright.- Melea said, giving in, -I guess if we're _really_ careful. But we have to morph something small so he doesn't notice us.-

-OK!- Kyger agreed happily.

They have both previously morphed an eight-legged blue mouse which was common on the Andalite homeworld, so they quickly morphed and sneaked around behind Ganlor. They followed him a bit and he entered the docking bay and stood near the entrance, apparently waiting for something. Soon the humans appeared at the entrance! He was using private thoughtspeak to communicate with the humans, but Melea and Kyger could still hear the humans talking to Ganlor.

"We are ready, Visser." The female human said, bowing her head a little.

When Kyger heard the word "Visser," he was shocked.

-Did you hear that Melea?- Kyger whispered incredulously.

-Yeerks.- She said simply. –We've got to do something.-

As Melea and Kyger listened, Rachel continued the conversation:

"Sorry, …erm… Commander, it will not happen again."

…

"Of course, Commander."

As the two Andalites watched, the humans began to morph!

-Uh oh,- Kyger said thinking hard, -They are all Yeerks, and they're going to infest your brother!-

-We _have_ to stop them!- Melea said. –Will you help?-

-Definitely.- came the reply as they watched both humans become the same animal. –What is that creature? It must be native to Earth. I've never seen anything like it before!-

-Neither have I- answered Melea. –I'll ask Aximili sometime.

Melea and Kyger watched, but the Andalite and the two morphed humans were using private thoughtspeak, so Melea and Kyger couldn't hear what they were saying.

-This is so frustrating!- vented Melea. –How are we going to find anything out!?-

-I don't know.- Kyger lamented. –But if we follow them, we're bound to discover something.-

Soon an Andalite, and two cheetahs headed toward one of the smaller ships in the docking bay.

-Oh no, they're heading toward that ship!- Melea said urgently. -C'mon!-

The two morphed Andalites scampered as fast as their little mouse bodies would go after Ganlor.

Kyger headed straight toward the ship. –No!- Melea said forcefully –If we follow them, they'll see us! Wait until they're inside!- She hid behind a support pole and Kyger quickly joined her.

They peeked their furry little mouse heads around the edge of the pole, watching until Ganlor and the morphed humans were inside, then they started toward the ramp.

As they reached the ramp and started to walk up, both Melea and Kyger were shocked when the ramp started to lift up with them on it!

-Ahhhhhhhhhhh- They screamed to each other in private thoughtspeak as their little rodent bodies slid down the ramp and into the dark entry of the ship. THUNK! They landed on the hard floor, a little bruised, but otherwise ok.

- Whew! And I thought getting onboard would be the easy part!- Kyger said, breathlessly.

-That was close.- Melea agreed when they were inside. –Now what?-

They both listened carefully and heard the CLOP CLOP of hooves a good distance down the hall.

-Let's see if we can find out more.- suggested Kyger. So they scurried toward the sound, stopping when they heard human voices.

"We are sorry Visser. We did not realize that others might overhear our conversation." The male human said.

A pause. Then "Of course. These humans have been trained in many types of space travel, as have we Yeerks. Of course we are capable of handling a small ship, such as this." Marco said.

There was a pause, and then …

"Of course." added Rachel. "And Aximili will be much more likely to go along with us than if you were with us, we are sure."

-Well,- Melea said. –They're definitely Yeerks, but what can we do about it?-

-Wait and see.- Kyger said. –Let's find someplace to demorph and wait. Then we won't have to worry about time so much.-

-Good idea.- So Melea and Kyger scurried off down the small corridor, in search of a place to hide.

_-Marco-_

We finally managed to convince Ganlor that we could handle the mission on our own. He gave us a thorough tour of the ship and showed us the hidden yeerk pool, all the while we were telling him we could handle the mission on our own and it would be much better that way. Finally he agreed, but he wasn't happy about it.

We watched Ganlor walk down the ramp. –You will contact me as soon as you reach Leera, do you understand me?- He called back.

"Yes." We echoed. Then I went pushed the lever to shut the hatch.

"Ready?" Rachel asked grinning at me.

"Yup." I said smiling back.

"You sure you know how to fly this thing?" She asked me.

"Uh, well no. But I know how most ships work, so this one shouldn't be much different." I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.

"Um, you know you could have said something … like, while we were planning this whole escapade?" She said sarcastically. "You don't know if you can fly it?"

"I can do it!" I assured her, looking frantically at the endless dials and screens. "Um." There was a joystick, I bet that was it. I walked over and pulled on it and the ship miraculously started to move. Whew! I leered at Rachel "See, told you I could figure it out."

She looked at the floor. "Lucky." She muttered under her breath, then she started pacing up and down the bridge.

Whatever. I was flying a ship. It was kinda fun.

I maneuvered the ship out of the Andalite Homeworld's atmosphere, then started looking around for the settings for the autopilot and navigation systems.

There was a screen with a bunch of funny letters on it, but it was just another computer, so I was sure I could convert it into English and start up the autopilot. Sure enough, a couple minutes and a bunch of screens later, the display was in English and I had routed a path through Z-space to Leera. All done.

I grinned over at Rachel. "Well?" she said. She had just been pacing the whole time, probably eager to do something, but computers aren't really her thing, so that was my job.

"It's all good." I replied. "There is no computer I can't defeat!"

She rolled her eyes, but was still smiling, then she winked at me. "We're finally alone!"

I thought about that for a moment. We really _were_ alone. Just the two of us on a ship without anyone to interrupt us. Finally! I nodded. "It's been a while since that's happened."

I really wasn't sure what to say. I loved her, but should I say anything? I was afraid she wouldn't agree. Sure, she'd let go of Tobias, but me? She was standing there, looking at me expectantly. What was she expecting?

"Princess," I started, "What do you want from me?" 'Great. Way to be blunt.' I thought, berating myself for speaking without thinking more carefully. 'That's just great. Now what's she gonna say?'

"I don't know, Marco." She said shaking her head slightly, "I hate to admit it, but … this whole 'being married for a mission' thing has really got me thinking."

"_Just_ the being married part?" I gently probed, walking toward her.

She looked down. "Well, no." She smiled. "The kissing kinda changed some things too."

I couldn't help but grin and nod. Need to be careful, don't want to hurt anyone's feelings…I reached out and took her hand. Oops, now my brain turned to mush. "Rach, " I started. "I … " I didn't know what to say.

She did, though. "I know." She said, nodding. Our relationship hadn't ever had terms before, and I was sure that's what she was thinking of too.

"I love you." Oh gosh, did I really say that? Oops. What was she going to say? I looked her in the face with a worried look and her eyes went wide. I had caught her off-guard. Well, I had caught myself off-guard, so I guess that made sense.

"Marco," she started, speaking slowly. "Did you really mean that?" She looked so vulnerable, I couldn't lie, but I couldn't speak either, so I nodded and looked at the ground, embarrassed that my true feelings had just come out like that.

But she didn't turn away, she took my other hand and stepped a little closer. I looked back into her eyes, wondering what she was going to say. She gulped for a second, and then a look of realization came into her face. "This isn't just recent, is it!" She said almost crying with emotion. "You've been in love with me all this time!"

I nodded, hoping… "How could you stand it?" She asked shaking her head in disbelief. "Working with me all that time? I've only been in love with you for a few days and keeping it to myself has been making me crazy! How could you even handle it?"

I couldn't help it – as she spoke I'm sure my smile just got broader and broader. She was in love with me too!

Rather than answering, I pulled her closer to me and gently pressed my lips to hers.

_-3__rd__ person-_

And neither Rachel nor Marco saw Kyger and Melea standing in the doorway to the bridge holding shredders set to stun. It was probably better that way because they didn't feel it either when they fell unconscious on the floor of the bridge and were dragged to the holding cages in the belly of the ship. The small Andalites scoured the computers on the bridge and determined where the ship was heading, then wandered back down into the holding quarters to come up with a plan and see if the humans had awoken.

-Well, now what are we going to do?- Kyger said.

-We just keep them in here until the Yeerks die, of course.- Melea said. –It will only take 3 days, and it takes longer than that to get to Leera.-

-Look, the male one is waking up!- Kyger said, watching as Marco sat up, blinked a few times, and shook his head.

_-Marco-_

I looked out the glass door of the holding chamber at the Andalites standing there. Huh?

-We have captured you, Yeerks!- Kyger announced in a haughty voice.

"Yeerks?" I said staring at them in disbelief.

-Don't play dumb with us.- Melea said to him. –We heard you call Ganlor 'Visser.'-

"Oh no." I said. I looked down and realized Rachel was starting to wake up. What were we going to do now?


End file.
